FTSE down one per cent on US data and bank and commodity dips
The UK’s top share index is one per cent down early in Wednesday’s session, mimicking overnight losses for US and Asian shares as underwhelming data from the US has hit global markets with commodity stocks and banks being the retreat leaders in London.
Kate Neilson
shareprices.com - Wednesday, August 04, 2010
At 10:00BST the FTSE 100 share index is 1.2 per cent down, dropping to 5,333.45 after losing over 60 points, with just a handful of stocks posting gains.
The declines come after the Dow Jones index dropped 38 points, the Nasdaq Composite fell 12 points and the S&P500 shed five points overnight. And Asia also suffered with the Nikkei plummeting 204 points.
A slowdown in US manufacturing date, a drop in house sales and an increase in unemployment have all taken their toll on the blue chip index this morning.
Accounting for the losses were banking stocks, lead by Standard Chartered (LON:STAN). A ten per cent rise in first half profit before tax didn’t send investors into a buying frenzy, and instead has led to a sell off with the results less than many had expected, especially in comparison to very strong results posted by HSBC (LON:HSBA) earlier in the week.
Standard Chartered shares fell almost six per cent, shedding over 110p, to hit the peak of the FTSE 100 fallers.
Lloyds Banking Group (LON:LLOY) experienced differing fortunes from Standard Chartered, adding almost two per cent to its share price after the group announced it had returned to profit for the first half of the year.
Royal Bank of Scotland (LON:RBS) also joined Lloyds in the FTSE 100 climbers lists, adding minimal gains after the £1.65bn sale of 300 of its branches to Santander was confirmed. The bank is due to release financial data on Friday. Barclays (LON:BARC), which is due to release its interim statement tomorrow, is down over 1.5 per cent.
As well as banks, energy stocks are also having a session of underperformance.
Crude prices fell, cutting many of the gains groups made yesterday. BG Group (LON:BG) and Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSA) both fell over one per cent along with BP (LON:BP) despite the oil giant announcing its ‘static kill’ operation to temporarily plug the deep sea well in the Gulf of Mexico has been successful – the share price is down 1.25 per cent.
Metal prices coincided with crude prices, dropping slightly, to put mining stocks into negative territory too.
The biggest faller of the session so far has been retailer Next (LON:NXT). The group claimed a slowdown in the market and consumer spending but said it believed online sales would help recoup the losses made. The share price declined over seven per cent, losing 170p.
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