London open: Buying interest on the rise in commodity space

Investors in London have come back from the long weekend with a slightly cautious attitude, as traders continue to debate whether the current push higher in equity markets will be sustained or not.In that regard, Gary Parkison, from The Times, warns today on the recent sharp rise seen in the number of shares being lent out. More specifically, he highlights how there has been a 90% increase in the number of metal and mining shares on loan this year, although a rise has been recorded in all sectors since the start of the year. When a company´s shares are lent out that does not automatically mean they are being ´sold short´ (sold in the hopes of acquiring more cheaply at a future date). Nevertheless, such is often the case. 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. Positions in soybeans, cocoa and crude oil saw the biggest gains. Simply put, an increasing number of traders seems to be less downbeat on the economic outlook.The latest, and better-than-expected, non-farm payrolls data Stateside are one factor that explains the above, while the European Central Bank´s new found easing bias is the other. In any case, rising buying interest in the commodity arena is contributing to this morning´s gains in the shares of basic resource companies such as Glencore, BHP or Rio Tinto. As well, few economic releases are expected today, although overnight the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) unexpectedly 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. The BRC shop price index has revealed that shop price inflation declined to a three and a half year low in April, hitting 0.4% compared to 1.4% the previous month. In UK company news, BG Group has 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 reports. Drinks giant Diageo has 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 has reported the successful well test of the Luno II discovery, in which it has a 30 per cent 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 have today all lowered their price targets on Royal Bank of Scotland.G4S stock is plummeting after warning that macroeconomic conditions will continue to weigh on margins in the short term.FTSE 100 - RisersExperian (EXPN) 1,180.00p +2.52%BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,887.50p +2.17%Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,082.00p +1.97%Barclays (BARC) 301.70p +1.89%Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,001.00p +1.83%Glencore Xstrata (GLEN) 349.65p +1.66%Croda International (CRDA) 2,541.00p +1.52%Land Securities Group (LAND) 893.50p +1.30%Anglo American (AAL) 1,656.50p +1.28%Old Mutual (OML) 210.70p +1.25%FTSE 100 - FallersG4S (GFS) 269.60p -11.75%Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,999.00p -2.08%Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 284.30p -1.90%Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 2,331.00p -1.15%AstraZeneca (AZN) 3,301.00p -1.15%National Grid (NG.) 817.00p -0.97%Associated British Foods (ABF) 1,921.00p -0.67%Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 2,282.00p -0.61%Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 1,133.00p -0.61%Bunzl (BNZL) 1,284.00p -0.54%FTSE 250 - RisersElementis (ELM) 254.30p +2.87%Betfair Group (BET) 866.50p +2.54%New World Resources A Shares (NWR) 153.50p +2.33%Petra Diamonds Ltd.(DI) (PDL) 108.40p +2.26%Premier Oil (PMO) 393.30p +2.24%Cobham (COB) 259.90p +2.04%Brewin Dolphin Holdings (BRW) 214.10p +1.95%Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (MLC) 561.00p +1.81%Investec (INVP) 479.50p +1.80%Afren (AFR) 139.20p +1.75%FTSE 250 - FallersImagination Technologies Group (IMG) 305.90p -2.86%Rank Group (RNK) 165.20p -2.82%Salamander Energy (SMDR) 189.00p -1.66%Home Retail Group (HOME) 137.70p -1.57%EnQuest (ENQ) 130.70p -1.43%Euromoney Institutional Investor (ERM) 985.00p -1.35%Petropavlovsk (POG) 147.00p -1.28%United Drug (UDG) 303.90p -1.07%Redrow (RDW) 209.80p -1.04%TR Property Inv Trust (TRY) 195.60p -0.96%FTSE TechMARK - RisersE2V Technologies (E2V) 120.00p +4.35%Phoenix IT Group (PNX) 146.38p +2.36%Innovation Group (TIG) 27.00p +1.89%Filtronic (FTC) 62.00p +1.64%Oxford Biomedica (OXB) 2.10p +1.20%Puricore (PURI) 45.00p 0.00%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%Torotrak (TRK) 31.00p 0.00%FTSE TechMARK - FallersEmblaze Ltd. (BLZ) 38.00p -32.74%Antisoma (ASM) 1.70p -8.85%Ark Therapeutics Group (AKT) 0.37p -8.64%NCC Group (NCC) 110.50p -2.64%Parity Group (PTY) 43.00p -1.71%Wolfson Microelectronics (WLF) 203.50p -1.21%Kofax (KFX) 317.00p -0.55%Xaar (XAR) 505.00p -0.39%Ricardo (RCDO) 386.00p -0.32%Puricore (PURI) 45.00p 0.00%AB