FTSE 100 Movers: Banks and miners soar on central bank moves

Miners and banks have jumped on the actions taken by China and a host of central banks to improve liquidity conditions across the globe.News that the People's Bank of China had lowered the legal reserve requirement for Chinese banks by 50 basis points sent equities soaring back into positive territory at midday. These gains were given an extra boost after six central banks, including the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, have announced that they will take co-ordinated action to ease strains in financial markets by making it cheaper for banks to buy dollars. Under today's arrangement the banks have agreed to lower the pricing on existing temporary US dollar liquidity swap arrangements by 50 basis points. Banks and miners, two sectors typically sensitive to the swings in global macro-economic developments, rocketed on the news. Lloyds, RBS and Barclays were among the better performers, joined by Antofagasta, Xstrata and Vedanta.Sage Group, the accountancy software company, saw its share price leap after it announced that its revenues had come in ahead of the consensus forecast for the 12 months to the end of September. Power systems giant Rolls-Royce was also on the up after winning new contracts worth up to $650m from deep water driller Petrobras. Rolls-Royce will supply Petrobras with thirty-two gas turbine power generation packages, including waste-heat recovery units, to support its production activities off the coast of Brazil.Oil giant Cairn Energy didn't join the party, as it continued to top the fallers list. The firm said that it has failed to find a commercial discovery at its exploration drilling campaign offshore Greenland, where drilling operations were extended to complete activities on the last two wells in the Atammik block. Utilities National Grid and Severn Trent, seen as defensive stocks, bore the brunt of the 'risk-on' appetite to fall lower.FTSE 100 - RisersAntofagasta (ANTO) 1,183.00p +9.13%Xstrata (XTA) 1,026.00p +7.43%Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 20.94p +7.27%Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 24.86p +7.25%Barclays (BARC) 180.80p +6.98%Vedanta Resources (VED) 1,063.00p +6.57%Kazakhmys (KAZ) 925.00p +6.51%Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,336.00p +6.29%BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,945.00p +5.94%Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,267.00p +5.76%FTSE 100 - FallersCairn Energy (CNE) 268.10p -2.51%National Grid (NG.) 628.00p -2.03%Capita Group (CPI) 630.00p -1.25%Severn Trent (SVT) 1,532.00p -0.26%NR