After an emergency policy meeting last night, Turkey lifted the overnight funding rate from 7.75% to 12% and hiked the one-week lending rate from 4.5% to 10%, as it looked to halt the recent slide in the lira which reached a record-low against the dollar on Monday.

According to Alpari Market Analyst Craig Erlam, if other countries follow suit, “this should re-stabilise the markets at a time when further Federal Reserve tapering is widely expected”.

The FTSE 100 opened 0.9% higher at 6,632 this morning, helped by strong gains in the heavyweight mining sector after well-received production updates from Antofagasta, Anglo American and Randgold.

The Fed, which concludes its two-day policy meeting later this evening, began scaling back its monthly asset purchases in December from $85bn to $75bn, is expected make another $10bn cut this month, according to the consensus forecast.

In other macro-related news, GfK’s consumer confidence survey for Germany showed confidence in the economy will rise to 8.2 in February, a level not seen since August 2007, up from the revised 7.7 for January.

Miners in focus

Chilean miner Antofagasta was a high riser this morning after unveiling a record year of copper production for 2013, supported by a strong output performance in the fourth quarter.

Anglo American also impressed as it reported an increase in fourth-quarter iron ore, copper, nickel and thermal coal production.

Meanwhile, Randgold Resources rose after saying that its Loulo-Gounkoto gold mine in Mali is likely to beat its revised production target for 2013.

Other miners including Fresnillo and Rio Tinto were also putting in a solid performance this morning.

Financials were also in demand as risk appetite continued to recover after recent volatility; Aberdeen, Hargreaves Lansdown, Prudential and Barclays were among the best performers.

Carphone Warehouse jumped after being signed as the preferred partner of Samsung Electronics to operate more than 60 Samsung stand-alone stores across Europe.

Luxury handbag and fashion group Mulberry sank by over 26% early on following a profit warning after UK Christmas trading fell short of hopes due to rival price-cutting.

FTSE 100 – Risers
Anglo American (AAL) 1,409.00p +4.88%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 862.00p +4.80%
Barclays (BARC) 283.70p +3.81%
Fresnillo (FRES) 772.50p +2.86%
Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 413.50p +2.55%
Vodafone Group (VOD) 228.30p +2.24%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,517.00p +2.15%
Glencore Xstrata (GLEN) 330.40p +2.04%
Hammerson (HMSO) 539.50p +1.79%
Persimmon (PSN) 1,315.00p +1.78%

FTSE 100 – Fallers
British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSY) 859.00p -0.92%
United Utilities Group (UU.) 733.50p -0.47%
Shire Plc (SHP) 3,020.00p -0.46%
Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 3,324.00p -0.30%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 1,206.00p -0.25%
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,600.50p -0.06%

Source: ShareCast