Insurers Prudential and Royal & Sun Alliance have fuelled today's FTSE surge.

Analysts believe that the growth has been as a result of investors using the insurance sector to play a market rally.

Significantly, the gainers outnumbered the fallers by a ratio of three to one. The FTSE was up 60.9 points, at 4112 points by 1pm today, on the back of 621m traded shares.

A city analyst said: "This is a relief rally. The background is still obviously very difficult but it's not quite as bad as people thought it was so the market is being pushed up to a fairer value."

Insurance stocks have so far dominated the FTSE, with Royal & Sun Alliance rising 8.7%, Prudential moving 6.4% higher and Aviva up 5.5%. RSA's gains were fuelled by the recession of fears of an imminent rights issue.

Topics