Reuters: Hot Stocks: Britain's FTSE drops for third day despite miner bounce

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 drops for third day despite miner bounce Apr 16th 2013, 11:22 Tue Apr 16, 2013 7:22am EDT * FTSE 100 down 0.6 percent * Investors wary, U.S. stocks see biggest 2013 fall on bombs * Miners rebound as commodity prices manage modest gains * Weak LVMH results hit luxury stocks By Alistair Smout LONDON, April 16 (Reuters) - Britain's top share index extended losses into a third session on Tuesday, with worries over a dour global growth outlook compounded by the weakest trading session on Wall Street this year. However, weakness was capped by a tentative recovery in miners, which took heart from a modest rebound in metals prices and was the only sector in positive territory. The FTSE 100 was down 35.48 points, or 0.6 percent, at 6,308.12 by 1032 GMT, taking its losses since Thursday's close to 1.7 percent and retreating further from a 5-year peak of 6,533.99 points set last month. Heavily weighted financials and consumer staples both suffered, combining to take over 16 points off the index as riskier sectors and more defensive stocks all suffered. The top faller was chip designer ARM, down 3.7 percent after a weak performance in the previous session by the tech-heavy U.S. stock market. U.S. stocks saw their worst day of the year on Tuesday, with soft U.S. and Chinese data this week compounded by heightened uncertainty following deadly bomb explosions in Boston, which led to deeper losses on Wall Street by the close. "There was a rapid downturn in U.S. equities when we got the news of that bombing, so combined with concerns over global growth, that's what us behind the falls we're seeing today," James Butterfill, global equity strategist at Coutts, said. He said that after such as strong start to the year on the FTSE 100 the recent weakness didn't surprise him, with the index now back at his fair value of 6,310. However, he believed that growth concerns that had dogged the miners were overdone. Mining stocks bounced 2.1 percent after seeing their worst falls since November 2011 in the previous session, as commodity prices also recovered from steep recent falls. "The amount that the commodity stocks had sold off is akin to pricing a global recession, which we think is very unlikely... so this could represent an interesting buying opportunity," Butterfill said. Gold and silver prices recovered after hitting their lowest levels in around 2 years overnight, tempting some investors back into the mining shares that suffered steep drops on Monday. Precious metal specialists Fresnillo and Randgold Resources both added over 4 percent, having slumped on Tuesday. Xstrata and Glencore gained 5.5 percent and 4 percent respectively, with traders citing a media report that China had approved the two companies' merger. Miners - the biggest contributors to the FTSE's fall in the previous two sessions - added 8.3 points to the index in early trade on Tuesday, the only sector to positively contribute to the FTSE's performance amid broad selling. Heavyweight Rio Tinto reported an inline trading update, helping to muddy the true nature of growth outlook in China, which Rio does a third of its business in. "Rio Tinto shares are at the top end of the FTSE100 this morning, benefiting from its Q1 operations review and production update," Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, said in a trading note. "Headline figures met consensus and may be seen at odds with weak Chinese GDP data that spooked markets yesterday." However, the majority of reports over the next few months could disappoint the market, with STOXX Europe 600 companies forecast to undershoot expectations by 3.9 percent, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. Weak numbers from LVMH, one of the first European companies to report first quarter numbers, weighed on Burberry , whose shares fell 1.1 percent on Tuesday. 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