Insurers and miners pace gains

Insurers and miners helped the Footsie outperform on Thursday after Fitch reaffirmed its constructive view on Prudential and an upbeat reserch note out of Credit Suisse helped to boost shares of many miners.

A further one-notch downgrade of its rating on the UK´s sovereign long-term debt would not automatically trigger a cut to Prudential´s own rating, Fitch Ratings said in a report in which it also reaffirmed the insurer´s current standing.

"Prudential's operations are well diversified globally, with significant operations in Asia and the US in addition to its UK business. In 2015, 54% of its assets backing insurance operations were related to business written in Asia and the US, and 76% of the group's long-term operating profit was generated outside the UK," the ratings agency added.

Over in the mining space, traders took note of the decision by analysts at Credit Suisse to bump up their projections for the price of iron ore.

The analysts raised their 12-month price forecast for iron ore in 2016 to an average level of $50 per tonne.

Their projections for the price of gold in 2016 and 2017 were raised by 4% and 10%, respectively. It was now seen reaching an average of $1,450/oz. in 2017.

For now the Swiss broker said it remained to be seen what the impact would be on global growth, so it opted not to make any changes to its underlying demand assumptions for China and globally.

In the same note it reinstated coverage of Glencore with an 'outperform' recommendation and 160p target price.