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London stocks rose in early trade on Thursday, taking their cue from a positive session in the US, where investors shrugged off a rise in inflation, with miners lending support.
At 0830 GMT, the FTSE 100 was up 0.3% to 7,234.86, while the pound was flat against the euro at 1.1242 and 0.3% firmer versus the dollar at 1.4043.
The year-on-year headline US consumer price index for January showed a 2.1% gain, unchanged from December and above economists’ expectations for a fall to 1.9%.
Spreadex analyst Connor Campbell said: “Given that these gains are coming after the hawkish, and higher than forecast, inflation figures out of the UK and US, it appears that investors have become slightly more accepting of any impending increase in interest rates. Or, at the very least, they saw little in Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s data to speed up the schedules laid out by the Federal Reserve and Bank of England in the last few weeks.”
There are no major UK data releases, but in the US, NY Empire State manufacturing and jobless claims are at 1330 GMT, along with the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index.
Heavily-weighted miners put in a solid performance as copper prices gained, with Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Glencore and Rio Tinto all up.
Elsewhere, RELX Group, the information and analytics formerly known as Reed Elsevier, was on the front foot as it lifted its final dividend 10%, pledged to repeat its £700m share buyback in 2018 and proposed a to merge its UK and Dutch parent companies in a further simplification of its corporate structure.
AstraZeneca was also firmer after it and Merck & Co announced that the US Food and Drug Administration has granted Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) for selumetinib, a MEK 1/2 inhibitor, for the treatment of neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1).
Medical equipment maker ConvaTec rallied as it reported better-than-forecast 2017 organic revenue growth of 2.3% to £1.76bn.
Bodycote surged after an upgrade to ‘overweight’ at JPMorgan andOld Mutual advanced as Renaissance Capital lifted the stock to ‘buy’.
On the downside, Standard Life Aberdeen was under the cosh as it said it was making an impairment charge of around £40m after Lloyds Bank announced it was withdrawing funds controlled by its Scottish Widows investment arm.
Insurer Lancashire Holdings was trading sharply lower after saying it swung to a bigger-than-expected full-year loss as natural catastrophes took their toll.
Indivior fell after it swung to a loss in the fourth quarter despite a rise in revenue, while GKN slipped after its chairman said the hostile bid from turnaround specialist Melrose Industries is “low price and high risk” and undervalues the group.
AstraZeneca, Unilever, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and PZ Cussons were lower as their stock went ex-dividend.
