London midday: Stocks firmer as policy makers move to buttress growth

Investor sentiment seems to have firmed a little in the first half of the session. That comes after a cautious start higher after the long weekend and as traders continued to debate about how much further the current push higher in equity markets has to go.Be that as it may, the latest data from the US Commodity and Futures Trading Comission (CFTC) - out yesterday - showed that net bullish positions for 18 raw materials jumped by 28% to 550,182, the biggest increase in seven weeks. At least in the very short-term, those figures would seem to belie worries about the economic backdrop, in part as central banks step in yet again to prop up growth. Thus, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) surprised traders overnight after it cut its main policy rate by 25 basis points, to the 2.75% mark. "The decision by the RBA to cut interest rates clearly suggests that the central bank anticipates a further slowdown in Chinese growth this year," wrote Craig Erlam from Alpari on Tuesday morning. In any case, rising buying interest in the commodity arena was making an important contribution to Tuesday's gains in the shares of basic resource companies such as ENRC, Evraz, Glencore, BHP or Rio Tinto. Strong quarterly earnings from some of the Continent's largest financial institutions, including Societe Generale, Commerzbank and Allianz were another factor behind the improved tone to markets come midday. For its part, J.P. Morgan this morning raised its view on European banks to outperform from underperform. Market sentiment also received a boost from better-than-expected factory orders figures out in Germany.HSBC reports solid quarterly resultsIn UK company news, FTSE 100-listed financial services group Prudential reported a positive start to 2013 driven by continued profitable growth in its businesses in Asia. Even so, the firm´s shares were declining - albeit after being one of this year´s best performers in the sector - after the introduction of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) hit business sales here in the United Kingdom.HSBC reported a 95% increase in pre-tax profits in the first quarter as the bank slashed costs and bad debts. Profit before tax for the three months to March 31st came to $8.4bn, up from the previous year's $4.3bn, as revenue rose by 14% to $18.4bn from $16.2bn. The company reduced operating expenses by 10% to $9.3bn from $10.3bn and cut loan impairment charges and other credit risk provisions by 51% to $1.1bn from $2.3bn. The fall in costs came on the back of the company's three-year restructuring that is now nearly complete.BG Group signed a deal with China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) for the sale of additional interest in the Queensland Curtis LNG project in Australia for $1.93bn. The FTSE 100 company will also supply an additional five million tonnes per year of liquefied natural gas. CNOOC will reimburse BG for its share of the project expenditure incurred from January 1st.Regional loans surged nearly 50% in the first quarter from a year earlier to $15.2bn, led by borrowings from the United Arab Emirates, John Vitalo, Chief Executive Officer for the Middle East and North Africa at Barclays, said in a May 2nd interview, Bloomberg reported. Drinks giant Diageo announced the appointment of Ivan Menezes as Chief Executive Officer. Menezes will begin on July 1st and succeeds Paul Walsh who will step down from the board at the annual general meeting in September and retire from the company in June 2014.Premier Oil reported the successful well test of the Luno II discovery, in which it has a 30% interest. The production test achieved an average flow rate of 2,044 barrels of oil per day of good quality crude oil. Premier said it estimates gross resources across the Luno II structure to be in the range of 75 to 130m barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) of which approximately 80% are liquids.Analysts at Nomura, Deutsche Bank and Exane BNP on Tuesday all lowered their price targets on Royal Bank of Scotland.G4S stock was plummeting after warning that macroeconomic conditions will continue to weigh on margins in the short term.FTSE 100 - RisersEurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC) 308.00p +5.23%HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 735.90p +3.08%Barclays (BARC) 304.60p +2.87%Evraz (EVR) 159.70p +2.63%Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,101.00p +2.60%Vedanta Resources (VED) 1,291.00p +2.30%CRH (CRH) 1,432.00p +2.14%TUI Travel (TT.) 331.00p +2.13%Glencore Xstrata (GLEN) 350.95p +2.04%GKN (GKN) 285.30p +1.97%FTSE 100 - FallersG4S (GFS) 262.40p -14.11%Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,949.00p -3.06%Fresnillo (FRES) 1,166.00p -3.00%Prudential (PRU) 1,128.00p -2.34%William Hill (WMH) 416.10p -2.12%Bunzl (BNZL) 1,267.00p -1.86%Serco Group (SRP) 613.50p -1.60%Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 2,323.00p -1.48%Aggreko (AGK) 1,698.00p -1.45%Admiral Group (ADM) 1,241.00p -1.43%FTSE 250 - RisersLonmin (LMI) 299.60p +4.65%New World Resources A Shares (NWR) 156.50p +4.33%Man Group (EMG) 124.10p +3.42%Debenhams (DEB) 89.20p +3.36%Elementis (ELM) 255.40p +3.32%Kenmare Resources (KMR) 28.75p +3.27%Ocado Group (OCDO) 181.00p +2.84%Unite Group (UTG) 359.60p +2.57%CSR (CSR) 519.50p +2.36%Ferrexpo (FXPO) 181.80p +2.08%FTSE 250 - FallersHome Retail Group (HOME) 135.50p -3.15%Imagination Technologies Group (IMG) 305.20p -3.08%Dixons Retail (DXNS) 36.00p -2.65%Petropavlovsk (POG) 145.00p -2.62%Heritage Oil (HOIL) 140.30p -2.50%Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 91.45p -2.35%IP Group (IPO) 150.50p -2.27%Dignity (DTY) 1,371.00p -2.07%Pennon Group (PNN) 672.00p -2.04%Kentz Corporation Ltd. (KENZ) 402.40p -2.02%FTSE TechMARK - RisersE2V Technologies (E2V) 120.00p +4.35%Optos (OPTS) 169.25p +3.83%Phoenix IT Group (PNX) 146.38p +2.36%Filtronic (FTC) 62.00p +1.64%Oxford Biomedica (OXB) 2.10p +1.20%Innovation Group (TIG) 26.75p +0.94%Vectura Group (VEC) 90.50p +0.56%DRS Data & Research Services (DRS) 20.75p 0.00%Triad Group (TRD) 6.00p 0.00%BATM Advanced Communications Ltd. (BVC) 18.50p 0.00%FTSE TechMARK - FallersAntisoma (ASM) 1.70p -8.85%Ark Therapeutics Group (AKT) 0.37p -8.64%Parity Group (PTY) 42.25p -3.43%Emblaze Ltd. (BLZ) 55.00p -2.65%NCC Group (NCC) 110.50p -2.64%Ricardo (RCDO) 377.75p -2.45%Wolfson Microelectronics (WLF) 202.00p -1.94%Phytopharm (PYM) 1.35p -1.82%Puricore (PURI) 44.50p -1.11%Vislink (VLK) 30.25p -0.82%