A daily look at the Markets from Nick Serff, Market Analyst, City Index.

Investors remained perplexed as to whether to build on equity positions or not as we head into the end of the quarter and a long bank holiday weekend.

The miners are stronger yet again, with the sector benefitting from stronger Copper prices and were it not for the miners, European Index Spreads would be trading more negatively.

The FTSE 100 briefly hit a new 21 month high this morning but gains quickly retreated as the banks dragged Indices lower as the day progressed.

Miners lifted on Vale/BHP news

The news that Vale and BHP have reached an agreement with Japanese steel mills to base pricing on a quarterly basis, as opposed to the long standing annual basis could potentially be big news for the miners.

Analysts have maintained that annualised contracts were costing miners billions of dollars in lost revenue as a result of volatile spikes in spot prices.

Should Rio Tinto reach a similar deal, it could help miners to maximise revenue and this is why the news is having such a beneficial affect on the mining sector today.

Final revised GDP better than expected

The final revision of UK GDP for Q4 came in better than expected but had largely little effect on equity markets. To hear that Britain emerged from its worst post war recession stronger than expected is clearly good news for future growth.

However, there remains a lot of uncertainty as to whether this momentum can carry and future GDP predictions are fluctuating on a monthly basis.

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