Miners weigh down the FTSE for second day – London Report
The FTSE 100 finished down yesterday as miners continued to suffer losses. The blue-chip index closed the day 0.32 per cent down at 6,275 points.
Yesterday’s largest faller was Anglo American, which saw its share price fall 4.54 per cent to 492.22p per share.
Glencore also shed 4.24 per cent to close at 105.05p per share, while Antofagasta closed 2.16 per cent down at 498.4 per share..
Barclays analysts downgraded the mining sector to “neutral” from “positive”, adding it was not easy to see what might help the sector out of its slump as demand seemed unlikely to increase.
Meanwhile, copper prices fell toward a six-year low on a stronger dollar. Jasper Lawler, analyst at CMC Markets, said: “A number of well-received earnings reports have been weighed down by poor Chinese data that threatens the demand for commodities from UK-listed mining and oil companies.”
“Metals and miners continue to face strong headwinds as the Chinese economy continues to show no signs of stability,” said Jawaid Afsar, senior trader at Securequity.
BHP Billiton suffered a smaller loss of 0.83 per cent to finish at 944.7p per share, while Fresnillo ended 1.43 per cent lower at 691p per share.
Shares in Experian ended 7.7 per cent up at 1,188.5p per share.
Lawler said: “Investors have taken well to the company’s positive outlook but there are headwinds that suggest the capital returns to shareholders might be a bit foolhardy.”
Shares in Vodafone were up 3.89 per cent to 222.8p per share after the company demonstrated it was well on track to smash sales expectations.
Vodafone posted first-half results that showed the company’s organic service revenue rose one per cent to £18.4bn in the six months to 30 September. This outstripped most analysts’ forecasts, which hovered around 0.8 per cent growth.
ITV also rose 1.83 per cent to 1,545p per share after reporting strong growth. Revenues at the broadcaster rose 13 per cent to £2.04bn over the last nine months.
AstraZeneca’s share price was largely unaffected after Moody’s and S&P both lower their credit rating for the company. S&P cut its rating from “A+” to “A”, while Moody’s lowered its rating from “stable” to “negative”. AstraZeneca’s share price fell 0.06 per cent to 4,156p per share.