London - Britain's top share index rose on Friday, helped by buoyant commodity stocks towards another weekly gain, continuing a run which has seen it outperform European peers.
Mining shares rose 2 percent, with the likes of Anglo American, Glencore, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto up 2.2-2.6 percent, helped by a firmer copper price.
Energy shares also contributed 11 points to gains, with BP and Shell adding the most points to the index after Brent crude broke back above $40 dollars a barrel.
Another top sectoral gainer was banks, led up by a 2.4 percent rally in Standard Chartered, seen as sensitive to swings in commodity prices.
“The bank's exposure to commodities has been flagged in the past and the stock is increasingly looking like a proxy for the sector, outperforming other financial plays as a result,” said Tony Cross, market analyst at Trustnet Direct.
The FTSE 100 was up 50.39 points, or 0.8 percent, at 6,187.82 by 07h27 GMT, up 0.6 percent for the week.
Its heavy weighting in commodity sectors has helped it to outperform other European stocks in recent weeks.
The FTSE 100 was set for its third weekly rise in the last four weeks. In the same time, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 has posted four straight weeks of losses.
Experian was down 1.1 percent, the only stock on the FTSE 100 that fell by more than 1 percent.
The credit data company was the biggest faller after it received a double downgrade from HSBC, being cut to “reduce” from “buy”, citing structural risks in Brazil
“Brazil's largest commercial banks... are working to set up a Positive credit bureau that will compete with Experian,” analysts at HSBC said in a note, adding that this could hit Experian's valuation.
“We believe such a market development poses a multiple de-rating threat,” they said.
REUTERS