Britain’s FTSE 100 rose for the sixth straight session on Tuesday, supported by gains in miners after top consumer, China pledged to step up policy support for the economy, while Unilever soared on a quarterly sales beat.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 rose 0.2%, helped by a 3.0% spike in industrial metal miners, which closed at its highest level since late April.
Most base metal prices rallied after China’s top leaders on Monday signalled there would be more supportive policies to come for the property sector that consumes a vast amount of metals.
“We think measures from China could circuit-break a downward confidence spiral and jumpstart a domestically driven sentiment recovery,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management in a note.
Copper miner Antofagasta was the day’s best performer on the FTSE 100 list as the stock rallied 6.6% on China stimulus boost.
Unilever jumped 4.3% after the maker of Dove soap and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream again raised prices to make up for higher costs.
The broader personal care, drug and grocery stores sector was up 2.6%.
Compass Group was the biggest loser on FTSE 100 index as the stock slipped 5.2% after the world’s largest catering group maintained its annual outlook.
Auto Trader Group fell 2.3% after JP Morgan downgraded the online car marketplace’s stock to “underweight” from “neutral”.
The domestically-focused FTSE 250 index was flat.
Bridgepoint Group was the biggest loser on the midcap index, down 9.8% after the alternative asset fund manager posted lower first-half core profit.
Investors are now focusing on interest rate decisions from the U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan later this week, while the Bank of England is widely expected to deliver more monetary policy pain next week.
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