Britain's top share index finished higher on Thursday as mining and energy stocks advanced and Bank of England policymakers appeared in no hurry to hike interest rates. The blue-chip FTSE 100 ended 0.6 percent stronger at 6,374.82 points, outperforming major European stock indexes. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index, France's CAC and Germany's DAX were all up 0.2 percent.
BoE policymakers voted 8-1 to keep interest rates at a record-low 0.5 percent. The central bank also said inflation would stay below 1 percent until spring 2016. It was zero in August. "There is some relief that the BoE is not in a hurry to raise interest rates, especially because the central bank sees inflation rising too slowly to its target level," said Keith Bowman, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
"The UK stock market is also getting support from a rally in some commodity stocks." The British oil and gas index rose 0.7 percent, tracking a rise in oil prices. The mining index advanced 1.3 percent. The mining company Fresnillo rose 4.2 percent to 704.5 pence, the top gainer in the FTSE 100 index, after HSBC raised its target price for the stock to 810 pence from 760 pence. Global diversified mining company BHP Billiton was up 3.3 percent. EasyJet rose 1.9 percent and IAG 1.0 percent. Analysts cited a boost from Air-France-KLM's report that total group traffic for September 2015 was up 22 percent.
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