Soaring commodity prices boosted industrial stocks on London markets this morning, lifting the capital’s premier FTSE 100 index to its highest level since before the pandemic.

The blue-chip index advanced to 7,242.73 points in early trading, before pulling back slightly.

More to follow.

Soaring commodity prices boosted industrial stocks on London markets this morning, lifting the capital’s premier FTSE 100 index to its highest level since before the pandemic.

The blue-chip index advanced to 7,242.73 points in early trading, before pulling back slightly.

In the year to date, the FTSE 100 is up over 10 per cent.

The gains have been driven by central banks pumping historic levels of stimulus into the global economy. Equity markets tend to benefit from loose monetary policy due to financial institutions and investors having more firepower to deploy in capital markets.

The upward trend has sustained on bets that stimulus measures will last for a while, according to Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell: “Investors seem to be taking the view that central bank monetary stimulus will remain in play and that we aren’t going to be punished by sharp inflation for a long time and interest rates reaching punchy levels.”

Markets seemed to have shrugged off concerns over supply chains snapping, soaring commodity prices and worker shortages potentially slowing the global economic recovery.

The blue-chip index was led higher by oil megacaps and miners gaining on commodity prices continuing their ascent.

BP and Royal Dutch Shell, which represent a large proportion of the premier index meaning any gains they register boosts the FTSE 100, were up more than 1.25 per cent.

Miners Evraz, Glencore and Anglo American were pushing toward the top of the risers column during the opening session.

Shares on the continent received a bump from the positive open in London – Germany’s Dax 30 and the pan-European Stoxx 600 were up 0.14 per cent and 0.24 per cent respectively.