Slowing China imports hit miners and drops FTSE below 5400 again

Mixed Chinese economic data released overnight has dropped the UK’s blue chip index below the 5,400 marker today after strong gains in the previous session. The biggest contributors to the losses have been miners after the data released from the Far East said imports into China were slowing.

Kate Neilson
shareprices.com - Tuesday, August 10, 2010

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Mining stocks are downbeat this morning

Investors feared a slowdown in imports would mean less demand for metals and has resulted in the FTSE 100 fallers charts being dominated by downbeat mining stocks.

Kazakhmys (LON:KAZ) is heading the plunge, down 31p and 2.5 per cent. Closely in tag are Antofagasta (LON:ANTO), Rio Tinto (LON:RIO), Eurasian Natural Resources (LON:ENRC), BHP Bilton (LON:BLT) and Xstrata (LON:XTA) with share price decreases above two per cent.

After making good progression yesterday, oil stocks have slumped today with crude prices softening. BP (LON:BP) is down 0.5 per cent as the most significant faller with other stocks trading relatively flat. The only exception was Cain Energy (LON:CNE) which has risen over two per cent after the Daily Mail reported the firm had been approached with a takeover offer.

Less than confidence inspiring results from Switzerland’s second largest bank, Credit Suisse, hammered banking stocks too today. Royal Bank of Scotland (LON:RBS) headed the declines with a loss of 3.4 per cent to bring a succession of strong gaining sessions for banking stock to an abrupt end. Lloyds Banking Group (LON:LLOY) wasn’t far behind with 1.5 per cent declines as investors feared both part-nationalised banks could be hit with high future funding costs and have to relinquish more assets.

The biggest faller of the session so far however has been TUI Travel (LON:TT). The travel group said it expected full-year profit to be at the bottom of expectations – investors soon retreated from the stock to put it almost eight per cent down.

With the market broadly uninspiring, analysts believe things aren’t likely to pick up much with a new raft of data signalling the state of the UK economy due for release soon.

Two surveys released today said house prices fell in July and retail sale growth hit a wall – two things that are likely to keep the purse strings of investors tight.

At 10:00BST, the FTSE 100 share index is 0.4 per down with a loss of 23 points to 5,387.10.

 

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