MARKET REPORT: Gold Miners Shine as Gold Bars Hit Record High

Gold miners rose as the price of the precious metal hit a record high.

Fresnillo rose 5.7 percent, or 30.5p, to 572.5p, Centamin climbed 1.3 percent, or 2p, to 156p and Hochschild Mining rose 4 percent, or 7p, to 182.4p.

The rally came as a weaker dollar and growing hopes of U.S. rate cuts next week sent gold prices above $2,560 an ounce, meaning the precious metal has risen by almost a quarter this year.

Endeavour Mining, which also benefited from the rally, revealed commercial production began at two mines in Senegal and Ivory Coast. Shares rose 10.5 percent, or 175p, to 1,836p.

There was also interest in cryptocurrencies. The price of bitcoin will reach a record high regardless of who wins the US election, one analyst predicted.

Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick expects the digital currency to reach a value of $125,000 if former President Donald Trump is re-elected in November.

And a win for his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, would send bitcoin’s price to $75,000. It is trading above $58,000 after peaking above $73,000 in March.

Kendrick added that progress has been made in easing regulations for banks.

The expectation is that digital assets will continue to exist next year, regardless of who ultimately ends up in the White House.

The FTSE 100 rose 0.4 percent, or 32.12 points, to 8,273.09 and the FTSE 250 rose 1 percent, or 199.6 points, to 20,895.37.

A broker downgrade hit AstraZeneca. The pharmaceutical giant, which last month became the first British company ever to reach a £200bn valuation, collapsed after Deutsche Bank Research advised clients to sell their shares.

Analysts said they had accepted the reality that the Dato-DXd treatment “would not be the next breakthrough in lung cancer that we had hoped for last summer.”

This week, AstraZeneca announced that its experimental precision medicine had little effect on the overall survival rate of lung cancer patients.

The group also recently faced a setback in China after a handful of employees were arrested for possible privacy violations and distributing a yet-to-be-approved liver cancer drug.

The shares fell 1 percent, or 122p, to 11,928p, taking losses to over 10 percent in less than two weeks.

Rival GSK this week published its fourth drug-related update, saying China’s health authority will speed up development of its treatment for a common blood cancer that is considered treatable but not curable.

Results from clinical trials showed that Blenrep in combination with another drug improved progression-free survival rates for patients with multiple myeloma. Shares fell 0.3 percent, or 5p, to 1633.5p.

Unilever will buy up to £675 million worth of shares from investors between now and mid-December.

The consumer goods group, which owns brands including Lynx, Magnum and Dove, bought more than 13 million shares worth £591 million between May and August, with shares up 0.3 per cent, or 13p, to 4,939p.

Trainline extended its gains a day after it said business had been boosted by fewer rail strikes and more customers switching to digital tickets. Shares rose 0.4 percent, or 1.2p, to 329p.