Sector movers: Miners rebound after sell-off

16th Apr 2013 15:13

Mining stocks were on the rebound on Tuesday following a steep sell-off the day before after commodities prices tanked.Disappointing first-quarter growth figures from China caused gold prices to plummet on Monday to a two-year lowReports that Cyprus is selling part of its bullion holdings to raise money and speculation that the Federal Reserve could scale back quantitative easing were also a factor. The 9.1% one-day slump in the price of gold was the steepest fall in 30 years. The price of the precious metal had recovered by as much as 3.0% today.Silver and copper prices were also rebounding today after both slumping the day before.The big news in the mining sector was the multi-billion-pound merger between Xstrata and Glencore has received the all-clear from Chinese regulators. Glencore said in a statement that the new company would have to sell its Las Bambas copper mine in Peru. Meanwhile, Xstrata's Chief Executive Officer Mick Davis has agreed to stand down following completion of the tie-up.Other metal producers were doing their best to recover today as traders saw yesterday's heavy falls as potential buying opportunities. Fresnillo, ENRC and Randgold were making decent gains.The latter announced this afternoon that its giant Kibali gold project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is "steadily nearing the stage where it will start to deliver value to its stakeholders and to support the economic growth of the DRC".Polymetal edged higher after saying that the flotation concentrator at its Mayskoye mine has been started up, producing its first dry gold concentrate.AIM-listed Triple Plate Junction jumped after agreeing to sell its 8.0% interest in gold exploration project Crater Mountain for $200,000.