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LONDON (Alliance News) - Miners continued their rise at midday on Friday, driven by the optimism in a potential recovery for metal prices as the US-China trade relations eased since the beginning of the week. The FTSE 100 was up 1.1%, or 78.26 points at 7,445.59 at midday, the FTSE 250 was up 0.2%, or 50.02 points, at 20,601.28. The AIM All-Share index was up 0.4%, or 4.62 points, at 1,099.51.The Cboe UK 100 was up 1.1% at 12,635.01, the Cboe UK 250 up 0.3% at 18,735.28 and the Cboe UK Small Companies gaining 0.3% at 12,229.98."European markets are maintaining the positivity seen overnight, with the likes of the FTSE and DAX pushing upwards yet again. Interestingly we are seeing an outperformance in the FTSE 100 over the domestically-focused FTSE 250, highlighting the ongoing fears over the UK economy. The pound has been reversing some of yesterday's gains, with the recent rise in inflation and retail sales being cancelled out by the growing possibility of a no-deal Brexit," said Joshua Mahony, market analyst at IG. Mahoney added: "The miners are back at the top of the pile, with the global gains in sentiment around US-China relations helping drive optimism in a potential recovery for metals."On the London Stock Exchange at midday blue chip miners were big risers, with Glencore up 3.2%, Antofagasta up 3.1%, Anglo American up 2.8%, BHP Billiton up 2.7% and Rio Tinto gaining 2.7%. Brent oil was quoted higher at USD79.43 a barrel at midday from USD78.86 at the close of Thursday.Gold was quoted higher at USD1207.16 an ounce at midday against USD1,204.01 on Thursday.Royal Dutch Shell A shares gained 1.5% after Bloomberg reported the oil giant is in talks to sell its interest in a Gulf of Mexico oilfield to Focus Oil Co, which could fetch up to USD1.3 billion. Shell's B shares were up 1.4%.Barclays was up 1.5% after it fixed problems which saw customers struggling to log in to their accounts and get through on the phone for much of the day on Thursday.The bank said the problems, which started at around 10am, had affected its website and telephone banking.Customers had been able to use the mobile phone app, although some mobile banking features had also been affected.Barclays, which has around 24 million customers, confirmed late on Thursday afternoon that the problems had been fixed.At the other end of the FTSE 100, Smiths Group was the worst performer at midday dropping 6.3%. The engineering group reported a decline in pretax profit for the year to the end of July to GBP435 million, from GBP601 million reported the year earlier. Revenue slipped by 2.0% to GBP3.21 billion from GBP3.28 billion. Revenue suffered from unfavourable currency translation rates, with underlying revenue, which excludes the effects of foreign exchange, acquisitions and supplemental sales for divested businesses, up 2% year-on-year.Not far behind was takeaway food firm Just Eat, dropping 5.7%. Brokers said acquisition talks between Uber and Roofoods Ltd, better known as Deliveroo, represented a potential threat to Just Eat, with Peel Hunt stating that the deal could be "a shift in the paradigm of the cooked food delivery market in the UK", and could particularly place a lot of pressure on Just Eat itself.At the bottom of the FTSE 250, SIG was down 1.7%. The building products company posted pretax profit of GBP19.9 million for the six months to the end of June, compared to a GBP15.8 million loss a year prior. The absence of a GBP50.2 million loss from the sale and closure of non-core businesses and other items related to the disposal of property in the first half of 2017 explained the increase.However, revenue slipped to GBP1.38 billion from GBP1.43 billion a year ago on difficult UK trading due to poor weather and political uncertainty.The pound was quoted at USD1.3187 at midday, down from USD1.3265 at the close of Thursday trading.The UK budget deficit increased in August, data from the Office for National Statistics showed.Public sector net borrowing, excluding public sector banks, rose by GBP2.4 billion from last year to GBP6.8 billion in August. This was the largest August borrowing for two years.At the end of August, public sector net debt excluding public sector banks totaled GBP1.78 trillion, or 84.3%, of gross domestic product. Debt increased by GBP15.9 billion from a year ago.In the current financial year-to-date period, public sector net borrowing excluding interventions was GBP17.8 billion, which was GBP7.8 billion less than in the same period in 2017. This was the lowest year-to-date borrowing for 16 years.Insurance market Lloyd's Of London said it swung back to profit in the first half of 2018 from an annual loss for 2017. Hurricanes and other natural disasters in the second half of last year had sent the insurance market to a GBP2.00 billion loss for all of 2017. At the time, Lloyd's noted major claims had cost it GBP4.5 billion, more than double the 2016 total. For the half-year to June 30, 2018, Lloyd's reported pretax profit of GBP588 million, which is down from GBP1.22 billion in the first six months of 2017. The insurer said the decrease was caused by a "comparatively low" investment return of GBP200 million from GBP1.0 billion a year before and is "consistent with the low returns seen across most asset classes". In the US, stocks are pointed towards a positive session with the Dow Jones expected to rise 0.2%, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite called to gain 0.1%. Focus in the US will lie on the Manufacturing PMI data for September at 1445 BST.The US is using sanctions against Russia and China to suppress economic competition, Russia's trade minister said in response to a new round of US sanctions.The US added 33 Russian intelligence and defence sector individuals as well as a Chinese entity along with its director to a sanctions blacklist on Thursday."It is chiefly due to the fact that we produce large volumes of competitive products," Denis Manturov told reporters in the south-western Chinese city of Kunming, according to Russian state news agency TASS.The sanctions against the Chinese military's Equipment Development Department were because of purchases of Russian combat aircraft and missile system equipment."The stronger the Chinese and Russian industries become, the more dissatisfaction it draws from our Western colleagues, in particular the US," Manturov was quoted as saying.The US should "be reminded of the concept of global stability, which they have mindlessly upended by escalating tension in Russian-US relations," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in a statement.The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the sanctions, which were imposed over Beijing's purchase of Russian military jets and surface-to-air missiles, "seriously damaged" relations between US and China and their militaries."We strongly urge the US to immediately correct the mistakes and revoke the so-called sanctions; otherwise the US must bear the consequences," ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said.Geng said China said Russia are "comprehensive strategic partners" and will continue to work together to boost cooperation.Over in mainland Europe at midday, the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.7% and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was up 0.7%.The euro was quoted at USD1.1775, up from USD1.1760 at the European equities close Thursday.The Eurozone private sector grew at the second-weakest rate since late-2016 on subdued manufacturing activity growth in September, survey data from IHS Markit showed.The composite output index fell to 54.2 in September from 54.5 in August. The score was forecast to remain unchanged at 54.5.Although the score was well above the 50.0 no-change level, it was the lowest since November 2016 with the exception of last May.The manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index dropped to 53.3 from 54.6 a month ago. The score was forecast to fall slightly to 54.5.Meanwhile, the services PMI rose to a 3-month high of 54.7 in September. The indicator was expected to remain at 54.4.