BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The UK stock market gained notable ground in positive territory Tuesday morning, mirroring the trend in other major markets in Europe, as investors picked up stocks amid hopes of an early exit by the U.S. from the Middle East war.
Miners gained significant ground as metal prices moved up sharply. Gold and silver futures climbed about 0.7% and 3.3%, respectively.
UK's FTSE 100 was up 63.58 points or 0.63% at 10,191.54 a little before noon.
Antofagasta, Endeavour Mining and Fresnillo climbed 3.1%, 2.4% and 2.3%, respectively. Glencore and Anglo American Plc moved up 1.8% and 1.7%, respectively. Rio Tinto gained 1.3%.
BAE Systems, JD Sports Fashion, Kingfisher, Associated British Foods, BT Group and Rightmove gained 2%-3%.
Rightmove, Pearson, Tesco, Vodafone Group, Marks & Spencer, St. James's Place, The Sage Group and LSEG also posted strong gains.
Shares of Domino's Pizza Group advanced 2.5%. The company has officially appointed interim chief executive Nicola Frampton as its permanent CEO.
Unilever moved higher after the company announced that it was in advanced talks to combine its food business with spice maker McCormick. The stock pared its gains subsequently and was last seen trading just marginally up from previous closing price.
Ashmore Group shares jumped more than 5% on reports that Japan Post Insurance is planning to take up to a 2.9% stake in the British asset manager and invest $1 billion in Ashmore-managed emerging market funds.
Airtel Africa drifted down 1.2%. Metlen Energy & Metals, Intertek Group, IMI and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners posted modest losses.
In economic news, the UK economy expanded at a steady pace in the fourth quarter, as initially estimated, final data from the Office for National Statistics showed.
Gross domestic product grew 0.1% from the prior quarter, which was unrevised from the previous estimate and followed similar growth in the third quarter.
The quarterly growth was driven by the 1.2% increase in production. Meanwhile, construction output contracted 2% and services output remained flat.
The statistical office also revised up economic growth for 2025 to 1.4% from 1.3%. The economy had expanded 1.1% in 2024.
UK house prices increased at a faster pace in March suggesting that the housing market regained some momentum, data from the Nationwide Building Society showe.
The annual growth in house prices rose to 2.2% in March from 1% in February. On a monthly basis, house prices moved up 0.9%, much faster than the 0.3% increase seen in February.
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