FTSE 100 movers: Miners soar after Fed announcement

Mining stocks were putting in an impressive performance as metals prices gained on a weaker dollar after the Fed announcement. Investors are hoping that an improved US economy will boost the demand for commodities. Kazakhmys, Vedanta, Evraz, Fresnillo, ENRC, Antofagasta and Anglo American all gaining between 7% and 17% by late in the session.Analyst Patrick Jones from Nomura said this morning: "The US Federal Reserve's announcement of further quantitative easing could provide support for commodity prices and the mining sector. During the 2010 QE2 rally, the copper spot price rose by ~50%, while copper equities doubled on average." The broker said it continues to favour higher quality copper miners over their higher beta peers. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Barclays and Lloyds were also making decent gains. RBS announced this morning that it is to launch an initial public offering (IPO) of its Direct Line Insurance Group, completing one of the conditions of its £45.5bn bailout from the government in late 2008. InterContinental Hotels shareholders celebrated the news of the hotel group's special division, which will be 108.4p per share. The Holiday Inns group announced on August 7th that it planned to return $0.5bn of funds to shareholders via a special dividend tied to a share consolidation, plus another $0.5bn through a share buy-back programme, and it has now made good on that pledge. Meanwhile, telecommunications service provider BT was down after it was forced to acquire set-top boxes from Humax, a Korean group, so as to be able to launch its long-delayed YouView internet TV service. FTSE 100 - RisersKazakhmys (KAZ) 790.00p +16.18%Evraz (EVR) 296.90p +14.46%Vedanta Resources (VED) 1,091.00p +13.47%Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC) 363.90p +11.11%Fresnillo (FRES) 1,890.00p +10.98%Anglo American (AAL) 2,082.00p +9.06%Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,346.00p +8.81%Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 7,490.00p +8.39%Polymetal International (POLY) 1,094.00p +8.32%Xstrata (XTA) 1,069.50p +7.70%FTSE 100 - FallersBritish Sky Broadcasting Group (BSY) 724.50p -2.62%GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,419.50p -1.39%BT Group (BT.A) 233.60p -1.35%Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 3,585.00p -1.35%Vodafone Group (VOD) 176.05p -0.73%AstraZeneca (AZN) 2,891.50p -0.72%Associated British Foods (ABF) 1,278.00p -0.70%Diageo (DGE) 1,678.00p -0.68%Shire Plc (SHP) 1,900.00p -0.47%Intertek Group (ITRK) 2,717.00p -0.44%NR