Could potential prey turn predator and Anglo American, the South Africa-based miner often seen as a bid target, mount its own bid for Xstrata? That was the talk yesterday, inspired by Credit Suisse analysts, who said that Anglo was keen to leverage up its balance sheet, which will be cash-positive by the year-end after the demerger of Tarmac. A £42-a-share bid by Anglo would produce higher earnings than a same-priced bid funded by Xstrata, Credit Suisse said.

Xstrata’s shares fell 66p to £32.50 while Anglo slipped 90p to £32.39 as mining stocks lost ground yesterday on falling metals prices.

The FTSE 100 closed up 24.5 points at 6,362.4, helped by strong results from Vodafone, up 13½p at 195½p, by a second day of rallying bank stocks and by Wall Street opening positively.

Only Kazakhmys, up 47p at £13.63, bucked mining’s profit-taking trend, buoyed by talk that it would make a healthy profit from its 18.8 per cent of Kazakhstan’s Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, which unveiled plans to float in London next month.

There was talk that a big institutional investor had ordered a programmed trade out of industrials and into pharmaceuticals and retailers, which are seen as having fallen too far. AstraZeneca rose 37p to £21.92 and GlaxoSmithKline closed up 21p at £12.16, while Invensys fell 12¾p to 255p, despite talk of stakebuilding. Charter fell 49p to £10 and Weir Group dropped 35½p to 829p.

There was vague talk of a bid for DSG International, up 5.9p at 120.8p, with the electrical goods retailer’s German rival Metro Markt cited, but analysts dismissed this as unlikely. “Metro has always grown organically,” one sector-watcher said.

Daily Mail and General Trust, the newspaper publisher, was the second-best blue-chip performer, up 31p to 592p, after Merrill Lynch initiated coverage with a 680p target, saying that the group’s nonnewspaper assets – such as websites – should put it at a premium to British newspaper peers.

Royal Bank of Scotland rose 18p to 457¾p on talk of stakebuilding by the entrepreneur Trevor Hemmings or sovereign funds and vague bid interest. William Friedrich, a nonexecutive director, bought 46,538 shares.

Barclays was up 14p at 527p and Lloyds TSB gained 10p at 497½p after Bear Stearns said that it had been told at a presentation that growth was still on track.

WPP, the global advertising agency, was up 21p at 607p after UBS said that Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP’s chief executive, had told it that trading was still strong. Resolution, off ½p at 705½p, has a board meeting today and is expected to move towards recommending the bid from Pearl.

Signs of an advertising recovery reported by Emap, up 16½p to 856p, helped Trinity Mirror, up 12p to 346p, and Johnston Press, up 21½p to 274p.

Paragon, a buy-to-let lender, leapt 26¼p to 226¼p on a “speculative buy” note from Robin Savage, of KBC Peel Hunt. He set a 210p price target in September when the stock was near 400p.

New York: The Dow Jones industrial average rose 319.60 points to close at 13,307.10 after Wal-Mart reported earnings that were better than expected and Goldman Sachs said that it did not expect a significant hit from sub-prime turmoil.

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