* FTSE 100 rises 0.6 pct
* BoE holds QE at 175 bln stg, leaves rates at 0.5 pct
* Miners up on firmer metals prices, Alcoa surprise profit
By Tricia Wright
LONDON, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Britain's top share index rose on
Thursday, helped by gains in mining stocks on firmer metals
prices and a surprise quarterly profit from U.S. aluminium
producer Alcoa <AA.N>.
By 1116 GMT, shortly after the Bank of England kept interest
rates unchanged as expected, the FTSE 100 <> was up 30.07
points, or 0.6 percent, at 5,138.97. It lost 0.6 percent on
Wednesday.
The BoE held interest rates at a record low of 0.5 percent
for the seventh month running and said it would keep its 175
billion pound asset buying programme in place. []
"Absolutely no surprise -- we can see that neither the
market nor sterling has moved at all really," said Rob
Griffiths, strategist at Cazenove.
"The crunch comes next month in the sense that we are going
to complete the programme of QE -- at the next meeting they need
to make a decision whether or not they extend the QE further and
that's going to be the key decision really," he said.
Miners added the most points to the index, buoyed by a rise
in metals prices, including gold <XAU=> at record highs, and
Alcoa detecting signs that key markets were stabilising and
expecting global consumption to rise by 11 percent in the second
half of this year. []
Indian-focused mining group Vedanta Resources <VED.L> was a
top blue-chip gainer, up 4 percent after posting a 15.6 percent
rise in second-quarter output of refined zinc and a 27.3 percent
increase in iron ore, its two most important minerals, in a
second-quarter production report.
BHP Billiton <BLT.L>, Lonmin <LMI.L>, Fresnillo <FRES.L>,
Xstrata <XTA.L>, Kazakhmys <KAZ.L>, Rio Tinto <RIO.L> and
Randgold Resources <RRS.L> added 2 to 3.8 percent.
Energy stocks were also in favour, rebounding after falls
the previous session as the crude price <CLc1> rose above $70 a
barrel. BG Group <BG.L>, Cairn Energy <CNE.L> and Tullow Oil
<TLW.L> gained between 0.6 and 2.9 percent.
Tullow Oil's CFO said Exxon Mobil <XOM.N> buying into Ghana
Jubilee field would be good for the project.
Among individual movers, BT Group <BT.L> added 3.1 percent,
aided by an Exane BNP Paribas upgrade to "outperform" from
"underperform".
GlaxoSmithKline <GSK.L> rose 0.3 percent, boosted by a
report by a leading tracker of prescription drug data, which
showed global pharmaceutical sales were proving more resistant
than expected to the economic slowdown. []
BANKS MIXED
It was a mixed picture among banking stocks. Heavyweight
HSBC <HSBA.L> put on 0.2 percent, while Standard Chartered
<STAN.L> added 2.6 percent.
HSBC has resumed talks with Royal Bank of Scotland <RBS.L>
over the purchase of the remaining retail and commercial units
that bailed-out RBS owns in Asia, sources said. []
RBS was on the back foot, down 1.5 percent.
Lloyds Banking Group <LLOY.L> was also lower, off 3.3
percent. The Financial Times said the part-nationalised lender
was sounding out investors about a 15 billion pound ($24
billion) rights issue to help it avoid a government scheme to
insure against credit losses. []
The European Central Bank left interest rates unchanged as
expected. []
(Editing by David Cowell)
