• China’s economic growth falls to six-year low as rebalancing takes hold

Meanwhile, a note from UBS highlighted Anglo American may face further downside risk to earnings from weak diamond prices. Third-quarter revenue is expected to fall by more than 50pc on soft demand for the gems.

“It is a concern that cut diamond prices are still falling and there has been a material inventory build,” a UBS analyst said.

Ahead of its third-quarter production report on Thursday, UBS said diamonds generated 40pc of Anglo’s underlying earnings in the first half of the year.

Elsewhere in the sector, analysts at Rapaport expect third quarter sales at diamond giant De Beers to fall 67pc.

Gold miners Fresnillo and Randgold Resources also slumped 2.4pc and 2.1pc, respectively, after gold prices fell by as much as 0.6pc to $1,170.88 per ounce.

European bourses all rose in early trade – touching a five-week high – with the CAC in Paris up 0.3pc and the German DAX climbing 0.8pc. The German index is approaching the 10,200 mark for the first time since the Volkswagen emissions scandal hindered its performance in September.

Connor Campbell, of SpreadEX, said: “With the rest of the region buoyant, investors seem keen to continue the exuberant trading that reappeared at the end of the last week, perhaps boosted by hopes of more ECB quantitative easing following the Eurozone’s negative inflation figure.”

^{German DAX index 60-day graph (Source: Bloomberg)}