Lloyds Share News (LLOY)

- Miners surge as Fed pledges low rates.- IIF willing to accept coupon rate of below 4%.- Ireland returns to international bond markets.The Footsie was up 1% by midday with miners leading the advance after the Federal Reserve's move to keep interest rates low last night weakened the dollar and made metals cheaper.Meanwhile, talks in Greece are ongoing. The head of Institute of International Finance (IIF), Charles Dallara, is to meet with Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos in Athens again today to discuss a debt-swap deal. According to Greek newspaper Ethnos, the IIF is now willing to accept a coupon rate for new Greek bonds of 3.75%, despite earlier demands of a rate no less than 4%.The Fed, which had previously said it would maintain the federal funds rate between 0% and 0.25% until mid-2013, announced yesterday that it intends to leave them as they are until late 2014. According to the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), "economic conditions - including low rates of resource utilization and a subdued outlook for inflation over the medium run - are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through late 2014." While the move fuelled a strong showing by US stocks last night, some noted that the decision reflected the central bank's concerns over economic growth: one economist from RBC Capital Markets (Tom Porcelli) was quoted as saying that "this drives home one important fact, the Fed is scared." Elsewhere, in a move which some are describing as the most significant since the country was frozen out of international debt markets last year, the Irish National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) yesterday offered to swap investors' holdings in the country's short-term debt. Some observers seem to believe that the move may benefit from the ECB's long-term refinancing operations. In other news, the World Economic Forum continues in Davos with German Chancellor Angela Merkel repeating her call for a union of "budgets, competition and solidarity". "We must ask ourselves what role Europe should play in the world", she said. "We must show that all of the (member states) are strong, although some stronger than others (...) We can only be successful if we are unified."MINERS JUMP AS FED PLEDGES LOW RATES With the Fed pledging to do its best to strengthen the economy, the dollar weakened against the euro, sending metals prices higher. As such, the miners were in demand in early trading in London with Vedanta Resources, Xstrata and Rio Tinto among the best performers.The big news of the morning on the corporate front was concerning Polymetal International. Although now off its best levels of the day, up 4.77% (after previously rising over 9%), there has been rumours that Russian peer Polyus Gold and Polymetal's billionaire owners are considering merging the Russian gold miners to create the world's ninth-biggest producer of the metal.Kazakhstan-based copper miner Kazakhmys was up in the top three after saying that it met all of its major production targets in 2011 and expects to maintain similar levels of copper output in 2012. Sector peer Anglo American also rose after it said iron ore production in the final quarter of 2011 increased by 5% from a year earlier to 12.4m tonnes.Royal Bank of Scotland was higher on rumours that US investment bank Jefferies is close to buying the bank's corporate broking arm Hoare Govett. Barclays and Lloyds were also making decent gains.FTSE 250 MOVERS: EASYJET FLYS HIGH, MISYS DROPS Budget airline easyJet jumped 9% after it reported a 16.7% increase in revenue for the quarter ended 31 December 2011, helped by higher seat prices and the absence of disruptive winter weather. The worst performer was financial software provider Misys after it swung to a pre-tax loss of £3.6m in the first half, down from a profit of £18.8m the year before. "Misys has had a tough first half and left itself too much to do in H2. We anticipate downgrades today of around 10%," according to Peel Hunt analyst Paul Morland. Joining in with the strong performance seen elsewhere in the sector, Russian gold miner Petropavlovsk rose nearly 6% after it saw production over the whole of 2011 up by almost a quarter from 2010's levels. BCFTSE 100 - RisersVedanta Resources (VED) 1,210.00p +5.03%Polymetal International (POLY) 1,120.00p +4.77%Kazakhmys (KAZ) 1,164.00p +4.58%International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (IAG) 179.00p +4.25%Xstrata (XTA) 1,123.50p +4.12%Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 32.13p +3.91%Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,852.50p +3.80%Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 7,075.00p +3.66%Barclays (BARC) 224.40p +3.29%Glencore International (GLEN) 432.15p +3.27%FTSE 100 - FallersTesco (TSCO) 320.40p -0.76%Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 418.90p -0.71%Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 293.70p -0.68%British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSY) 668.00p -0.67%Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 287.90p -0.62%Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 2,249.00p -0.62%Serco Group (SRP) 510.00p -0.49%Carnival (CCL) 1,936.00p -0.36%HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 535.70p -0.24%G4S (GFS) 269.20p -0.22%FTSE 250 - RiserseasyJet (EZJ) 439.00p +8.72%Domino Printing Sciences (DNO) 615.00p +7.89%Petropavlovsk (POG) 739.00p +6.10%AG Barr (BAG) 1,295.00p +5.89%Lonmin (LMI) 1,099.00p +5.37%Hochschild Mining (HOC) 495.40p +5.25%Ferrexpo (FXPO) 346.10p +4.85%Mondi (MNDI) 526.00p +4.78%Ashtead Group (AHT) 239.70p +4.67%Diploma (DPLM) 400.00p +4.19%FTSE 250 - FallersMisys (MSY) 301.00p -7.53%PayPoint (PAY) 560.00p -4.27%3i Group (III) 180.80p -2.27%Mitie Group (MTO) 266.20p -1.59%International Personal Finance (IPF) 195.60p -1.41%Talvivaara Mining Company (TALV) 329.70p -1.14%Home Retail Group (HOME) 98.50p -1.05%WH Smith (SMWH) 549.50p -0.81%Homeserve (HSV) 296.70p -0.74%Chemring Group (CHG) 378.50p -0.63%