Miners fall as China's interest rate rises

The market was taken by surprise on Tuesday as China announced a further interest rate rise in a bid to try and curb its inflation problem. After finishing the previous session at the highest level since 18 January, the FTSE 100 fell to 6038 by 11.56 GMT, a drop of 12 points, or 0.2 per cent.

Chris Bradshaw
shareprices.com - Tuesday, February 08, 2011

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The sector performed poorly on Tuesday with many firms tumbling in value. After adding 7 per cent so far in February, the miners were the biggest downward pressure on the index with many trading update due to be announced this week.

Xstrata dropped 0.7 per cent following the release of their annual figures but Lonmin was the biggest faller of the sector, losing 3.3 per cent. Anglo American was also amongst the index's top losses of the day, sliding 1.9 per cent. Other fallers in the sector were Eurasian Natural Resources, falling 2.2 per cent

Energy stocks however continued to strengthen providing support to the index. BG Group was the stand out performer, climbing by 1 per cent following the release of its 2010 figures which exceeded predictions. Not all firms within the sector performed as well with Cairn Energy one of the biggest fallers with a loss of 3.2 per cent.

Marks and Spencer saw its stocks rise by 2.7 per cent after it confirmed that rising star Laura Wade-Gery had left Tesco to join Marks and Spencer's ranks. The switch will be seen as a real loss to Tesco and heightens speculation about whether the bubble is about to burst for the UK supermarket giant. Tesco saw its price fall by 0.6 per cent.

 

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