Evy Hambro, a gold and mining specialist at BlackRock, was this week's top-performing fund manager despite being on holiday - as his world mining fund rode the crest of rising valuations in the sector.

Hambro's $12.5bn (€9.7bn) World Mining fund returned 6.6% in sterling terms from Monday to the close of markets yesterday, according to data provider Financial Express. It rose on the back of strong performance from mining companies this week: the HSBC Global Mining index rose by 5.9% over the period.