A surge in commodities such as iron ore, copper, and nickel helped mining stocks outperform the index, with investors clearly willing to overlook continued recession and Chinese lockdown concerns.

Glencore was up 4.98% and fellow miner Rio Tinto 4.26%. But the star performer in the FTSE 100 index was online grocer Ocado Group, which jumped 38.23% after it unveiled a a deal with South Korean conglomerate Lotte Group.

BP was 1.43% higher as bumper Q3 profits (see below) and a share buyback outweighed fears of further windfall taxes on the oil giants.

The FTSE 100 closed 91.63 points higher at 7,186.

Investors cast aside poor housing and manufacturing data, and bought sterling in anticipation of the Bank of England raising interest rates on Thursday.

The pound was up 0.76% at $1.1554 and also up on the euro at €1.1615.

The Bank began selling off some of the gilts it bought as part of the quantitative easing programme.

8am: Made.com goes under

Made.com said it has filed a notice to appoint administrators after rescue talks to find a buyer for the online furniture firm failed.

7am: BP profits

Energy giant BP posted an underlying replacement cost profit of $8.15 billion, signficantly higher than the $3.32bn for the same period last year, but lower than the $8.5 billion for the previous quarter. It said it was focused on fuel source transition.

The company expects oil prices to remain elevated in the fourth quarter due to the recent OPEC+ supply cut reducing supply amid ongoing uncertainty associated with Russian oil exports.

Global gas prices will also remain high and volatile during the fourth quarter due to a lack of supply to Europe with the outlook heavily dependent on Russian pipeline flows or other supply disruptions.

Fourth-quarter 2022 upstream production on a reported basis is expected to be slightly lower compared with the third-quarter 2022, primarily in its gas regions.

Chief executive Bernard Looney said: “This quarter’s results reflect us continuing to perform while transforming.

“We remain focused on helping to solve the energy trilemma – secure, affordable and lower carbon energy. We are providing the oil and gas the world needs today – while at the same time – investing to accelerate the energy transition.

“Our agreement on Archaea Energy is the most recent step in our strategic transformation of BP.”

7am: AssetCo completes SVM acquisition

Martin Gilbert’s AssetCo, the asset and wealth management company, has completed its £11.2m acquisition of Colin McLean’s SVM Asset Management Holdings.

AssetCo said SVM is a key component of its plans to have a “strong and dynamic asset management hub” in Edinburgh.

Full story here

Twitter lay-offs

Twitter, which was acquired last week by billionaire Elon Musk, plans to make a quarter of its workforce redundant as part of a first round of layoffs, the Washington Post reported.

The social network had more than 7,000 employees at the end of 2021. 

Mr Musk fired Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal, finance chief Ned Segal, and head of legal affairs and policy Vijaya Gadde on completion of the six-month $44 billion buyout saga.

Global markets

Asia’s equity markets advanced while bond yields eased slightly on following mild losses on Wall Street as investors turned their focus to the US Federal Reserve’s policy meeting this week for hints on what comes next.

The central bank is all but certain to raise interest rates by 75 basis points on Wednesday, but investors will look for any signals the Fed may be considering a deceleration in interest rate hikes in the future.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index jumped 6.4%. Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.22% on the strong outlook of some companies amid a mixed earnings season.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4%, or 130 points, while the S&P 500 dipped 0.7% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 1%.

Despite Monday’s drop, the Dow still posted its best October in the index’s 126-year history, up 14% and its largest monthly gain since 1976.