Britain's FTSE 100 rose on Thursday, buoyed by oil stocks and miners, as investors cheered the US Federal Reserve halting policy tightening, while results-driven slumps in engineering firm Renishaw and trading platform IG dented the midcap index. The FTSE 100 added 0.4 percent to outperform its European peers. The mid-cap FTSE 250 was down 0.3 percent by 0936 GMT, ahead of a Bank of England policy decision.
The Fed on Wednesday abandoned projections for any interest rate hikes this year amid signs of an economic slowdown, and said it would end its balance sheet reduction in September, which softened the dollar. "Clearly for now, though, the Fed has thrown in the towel. Spooked by market gyrations in Q4 last year it's decided that the market cannot handle any more hikes for the foreseeable future," said Markets.com analyst Neil Wilson.
Miners derived gains from a weak dollar and on hopes of tighter supply after Vale said it would halt production at a Brazilian mine, while oil majors rose as prices surged amid Opec supply cuts and US sanctions against Iran and Venezuela. Precious metals miner Fresnillo rose 5.5 percent to be the biggest blue-chip gainer as safe-haven assets like gold were in demand.
The pound struggled as investors still awaited clarity on Brexit. European Council President Donald Tusk said a delay to Brexit would only be possible if British lawmakers back Prime Minister Theresa May's deal, which has already been voted down twice. "For sterling there's a lot of uncertainty, and I think what you are seeing is that it's near impossible to take a position on the pound right now so the market appears more relaxed than it is," Wilson said.
Clothing chain Next underperformed the main bourse and was 1.7 percent lower after its annual profit fell and it guided to another decline in the 2019-20 year. Royal Bank of Scotland and Phoenix Group shed 2.5 percent each on the FTSE 100, while mid-cap housebuilder Crest Nicholson slumped 9 percent, on track for its worst day since May as the stocks traded ex-dividend.
Results drove some steep moves as precision engineering group Renishaw tanked 11.7 percent on course for its biggest drop in more than a year after cutting annual profit forecast.
Online financial trading firm IG Group slipped 7.4 percent to a near two-year low after its quarterly net trading revenue fell as its UK and European units were hit by stricter regulations. Fashion retailer Ted Baker gave up 4.7 percent after its first drop in annual pretax profit since the financial crisis.