Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO), BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP) and Anglo American (OTCPK:AAUKF, OTCPK:AAUKY) soar near the top of U.K.'s FTSE 100 after Morgan Stanley upgraded the metal and mining sector to Attractive, saying valuations are at historically attractive levels.
Glencore also is higher after saying it closed its Eland platinum mine in South Africa, resulting in 970 job losses.
Stanley sees commodity prices rising 19% by 2017, which would be "a sharp reversal from the experience in the last 18 months," and believes the recent acceleration of financial and administrative stimulus policies in China "will start to feed through in both actual activity levels and equity market expectations."
The firm raises its recommendation for Rio and to Overweight from Equal Weight and for Anglo to Equal Weight from Underweight.
In the U.S. premarket, RIO +8.7%, BHP +4.1%.