Reuters: Hot Stocks: Britain's FTSE retreats on renewed euro zone concerns

Reuters: Hot Stocks Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Britain's FTSE retreats on renewed euro zone concerns Dec 10th 2012, 09:17 Mon Dec 10, 2012 4:17am EST * FTSE 100 down 0.2 pct, led by banks * Retreat comes after 4th test of 5,920-32 resistance * Miners supported by strong Chinese factory data By Toni Vorobyova LONDON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - British shares dipped on Monday, led by banks after Italian political wrangles put the euro zone crisis back in the spotlight, overshadowing tentative signs of improvement in the global economy. The FTSE 100 was down 13.50 points or 0.2 percent at 5,900.90 by 0840 GMT, with concerns about the euro zone prompting the index to turn tail from strong technical resistance. Banks, which are most directly exposed to the euro zone crisis through sovereign debt holdings, were one of the worst performing sectors, down 0.5 percent. Losers included HSBC, Barclays and RBS. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Saturday that he would resign after the 2013 budget is approved, increasing political uncertainty in the heavily indebted country and probably bringing forward elections to February. With unpredictable Silvio Berlusconi bidding to return to power, the news of Monti's resignation unsettled equity markets, prompting investors to take profits on three weeks of gains. "There is a bit of uncertainty so we are slightly softer today," said Jack Pollard, analyst at Sucden Financial, although he added that the weakness may prove short lived as the election is only likely to be a month earlier than planned. "It's just the fact that markets are fairly sensitive at the moment so there is a bit of a risk off today." The UK benchmark, which is up 5 percent since mid-November, has now seen technical resistance in the 5,920-5,932 area cap its rally four times in three months. Pollard, however, said the FTSE 100 could well re-test the highs again soon, as long as France's CAC 40 and Germany DAX hold above recently conquered resistances. The euro zone concerns - which saw Italy's benchmark stock index drop 1.9 percent as its bond yields rose - overshadowed some upbeat signals from the world economy. Chinese factory output and retail sales rose more than expected in November, data released over the weekend showed, hot on the heels of forecast-beating U.S. non-farm payrolls numbers on Friday. The stronger numbers helped support oil and commodity prices, and overshadowed weak Chinese export growth data on Monday, to the benefit of Britain's heavyweight energy and mining stocks. Rio Tinto added 0.8 percent, the top FTSE 100 gainer as copper touched near 2-month highs. Darren Winder, strategist at Oriel Securities, said UK miners could be on track for a strong 2013 after a weak showing this year. "There is a reasonable amount of forward momentum in the (U.S) economy already to absorb the impact of any fiscal tightening," he said. "And in China there does seem to be increasing evidence that the slowdown we've seen in 2012 is beginning to bottom out and we may see growth in 2013 and that would be very positive for commodity producers." (Editing by Susan Fenton) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions