Barclays Share News (BARC)

The Footsie finished at the highest level of the day, with just four stocks in the red, as gains were built on after the opening bell in New York, which saw stocks rise on the back of a better-than-expected unemployment claims report.It was a busy day on the macroeconomic front with policy rate decisions coming from home and abroad.At midday, the Bank of England surprised the market with a resumption of its quantitative easing programme, saying it will pump £75bn of new money into the economy. While a move was in the pipelines, most had anticipated the central bank to hold off for at least another month and thought that a lesser £50bn would be set aside. The Bank of England's QE initiative has lain dormant since 2009, after it spent £200bn buying up assets such as government bonds from banks in an effort to lubricate the banking system in the UK. The Bank's key lending rate was left at the historic low of 0.5%."The decision to take this step has been greeted positively by the street as an indication that public figures in Europe are taking the risk of a recession seriously and are prepared to take decisive measures to try and prevent events from spiralling out of control as they did three years ago. This has added to hopes that policy makers on the continent will follow suit in the near term and come up with a decisive plan to deal with the Greek debt and bank recapitalization problems," according to market analyst Colin Cieszynski from CMC Markets Canada.While the European Central Bank also kept hold of its own interest rates, leaving them at 1.5%, it announced several new measures aimed at the provision of liquidity to the financial system, including a €40bn covered bond purchase programme, two 12-month refinancing operations and six three-month operations in place until next June with full allotment. On the whole, and at first glance, the decisions announced by the ECB seem to have been largely 'in line' with what was expected by the consensus, although it is not clear what consensus had been expecting as far as non-standard measures are concerned. Markets across Europe extended Wednesday's gains on hopes that the European Union is planning for a co-ordinated recapitalisation of the continent's banks. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said that he is pressuring member states to take co-ordinated action to recapitalise banks in the region. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken out, saying that "Germany is prepared to move to recapitalise". Meanwhile, there were reports that European regulators are planning a new round of stress tests for banks in order to evaluate the impact of greater write-downs as a result of a potential default. Financial stocks were in demand with Prudential, Aviva, Standard Chartered and Barclays registering strong gains.However, it was the miners who dominated the markets today, helped higher by surging copper and silver prices, which rose 4.6% and 3.8%, respectively. Eurasian Natural Resource Corp, Antofagasta, Kazakhmys and Vedanta Resources led the advance. CMC's Cieszynski added, "Stocks and commodities have continued to rise this morning suggesting increased recognition that recent bearishness and the pricing in of another 2008 style financial crisis and deep recession may have been overdone."Xstrata was in demand after it said it has secured long-term energy supplies for its North-west Queensland operations in Australia after a two-year selection process. Engineering firm IMI was a notable performer, finishing over 11% higher after it confirmed that current trading has been in line with expectations. Eastern Europe-focused oil producer Exillon Energy rocketed nearly 23% after announcing that it has discovered oil at the south-eastern part of the East EWS I field in Russia. Ukraine-focused iron ore producer Ferrexpo jumped over 10% after it said pellet production in August was the second highest in the company's history at 0.9m tonnes. A big mover was AIM-listed consulting and business services group Mouchel after the firm revealed that after an accounting error and higher provisions for contract risks, profits would be well under expectations. Not helping matters either was the resignation of the chief executive. Shares plummeted by over a third. BCFTSE 100 - RisersPrudential (PRU) 590.00p +11.74%IMI (IMI) 759.00p +11.45%GKN (GKN) 182.40p +10.34%Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,042.00p +10.21%Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC) 611.50p +9.69%Standard Chartered (STAN) 1,325.00p +8.83%Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 35.87p +8.68%Kazakhmys (KAZ) 847.50p +8.31%Xstrata (XTA) 885.70p +8.25%Essar Energy (ESSR) 269.10p +8.20%FTSE 100 - FallersMan Group (EMG) 162.60p -1.22%Admiral Group (ADM) 1,259.00p -0.32%Autonomy Corporation (AU.) 2,546.00p -0.16%Next (NXT) 2,446.00p -0.04%