FTSE touches new 21-month high

The FTSE 100 has risen to a fresh 21-month intra-day high during trading on the stock markets this morning (March 30th).

By 08:50 BST the index was up 10.55 points to 5,721.21 points, having earlier reached 5,742.75 points, Reuters reports.

Those using their personal wealth to trade in commodity stocks will have seen the biggest boost, after a fall in the value of the dollar helped the price of crude oil and metals to surge.

Shares in BHP Billiton were 2.3 per cent higher, while there were gains of between 1.6 per cent and 2.8 per cent for Xstrata, Rio Tinto, Antofagasta and Anglo American.

In the oil markets, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, BG Group and Cairn Energy were all raised by as much as 0.6 per cent.

Senior trader for ETX Capital Mic Mills was quoted by the news source as saying the forthcoming Easter break means ’investors are unlikely to push the market too much higher’ over the next few days.

In Europe, the FTSEurofirst 300 was close to an 18-month high, having climbed to 1,085.38 points at 08:14 GMT, the news agency reports.ADNFCR-2318-ID-19696479-ADNFCR