ENRC.L Share News (ENRC)

Rumours of stimulus measures from top consumer China sparked some strong gains in the mining sector on Monday as stocks extended gains following last week's upbeat economic data from the Asian powerhouse.Traders were reacting to a report from the South China Morning Post (SCNP) which suggested that Beijing is "quietly offering financial stimulus" to certain cities and provinces in an attempt to buoy growth, as opposed to giving out nationwide help.SCNP cited government and banking industry sources as saying that one of the big four state lenders, Agricultural Bank of China (Agbank), signed an agreement to provide a 250bn-yuan loan to Shanghai last week, with the newspaper labelling it as an "unofficial financial boost".Mining stocks reacted strongly to this speculation on hopes that a sharp slowdown in Chinese economic growth can be avoided this year. The outlook for China, the world's number-one user of metals, brightened last week as better-than-expected trade figures, strong industrial production data and subdued inflation pointed to a stabilisation in the world's second-largest economy.In other news, the China Gold Association said that gold consumption reached 706.36 metric tons in the first half of 2013, up 54% year-on-year as falling prices attracted buyers. The country is expected to overtake India as the world's top bullion consumer later this year.Rising metals price also helped equities on Monday with gold futures for December delivery up 2.1% at $1,339.70 an ounce on COMEX in New York. Silver meanwhile had jumped 4.3% to $21.28 an ounce.Precious metals producers Fresnillo, Randgold and African Barrick Gold were among the best performers in the sector today, followed closely behind by Anglo American, Vedanta Resources, Antofagasta and ENRC.According to analysts at Jefferies, mining shares have "significantly underperformed the market" so far in 2013 before rebounding strongly in recent weeks."It is possible that investors are rotating out of winners and into laggards, especially those laggards that are exposed to improving fundamentals. We have noticed a very strong increase in investor interest in the mining sector recently," they said.Miners seemed to be shrugging off disappointing data from Japan released overnight which showed that growth in the world's third-largest economy slowed down from 3.8% in the first quarter to just 2.6% in the second.Top performing sectors so far todayIndustrial Metals & Mining 1,461.77 +8.18%Mining 17,096.56 +1.49%Life Insurance 6,449.53 +0.93%Technology Hardware & Equipment 1,059.29 +0.74%Banks 5,063.64 +0.40%Bottom performing sectors so far todayForestry & Paper 11,159.13 -1.61%Automobiles & Parts 8,068.67 -1.40%Aerospace and Defence 5,170.43 -1.29%Real Estate Investment & Services 2,609.16 -1.10%General Retailers 2,605.91 -1.09%BC