The commodity-heavy FTSE 100 was up 1 per cent, with miners including Rio Tinto, Glencore and BHP Group providing the biggest boosts, while oil major Royal Dutch Shell rose 2 per cent. — Reuters pic
The mid-cap FTSE 250 also rose 1.7 per cent as data showed China's industrial production climbed a faster-than-expected 3.9 per cent in April as the country returned to work after months of coronavirus-induced lockdowns. “We can explain most of that by government and central bank intervention that has almost eliminated the risk of a credit crisis. But we do think that some of the asset price inflation, with price/earnings ratios moving to new highs is exaggerated.”
“We just can't afford the risk of lowering the guards too early, which means we just simply can't go back to normal anytime soon,” Andrea Cicione, head of strategy at TS Lombard, said. A week after investors began betting on negative US interest rates, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said the central bank was not considering taking rates below zero, although he declined to rule it out altogether.