Reuters: Hot Stocks: Britain's FTSE falls as defensives beat a retreat

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 falls as defensives beat a retreat Apr 16th 2013, 16:13 Tue Apr 16, 2013 12:13pm EDT * FTSE 100 down 0.6 percent * Growth concerns hit consumer staples and health care * Miners rebound after commodity slump * Xstrata and Glencore gain after clinching Chinese approval By Alistair Smout LONDON, April 16 (Reuters) - Britain's top share index extended losses into a third session on Tuesday, after poor German confidence data provided a reminder of a dour growth outlook, while the beaten down mining sector rebounded. Defensive stocks, usually resilient to economic uncertainty, were among the top fallers, with consumer staples and health care names combining to take over 20 points off the blue-chip FTSE 100 index. Many of those names are among the FTSE's more European-exposed companies, in contrast to the globally-exposed miners, and were hit when Germany's ZEW sentiment survey came in well below low expectations, a signal that a flare-up in the euro zone crisis had hit Europe's largest economy. "There's been a natural bounce from the more fickle miners ... but that's no explanation for the defensive weakness as we are hardly 'risk on'," Yusuf Heusen, senior sales trader at IG Markets, said. "German confidence may well be weighing more heavily, as the defensives tend to have a wider European presence, especially looking at chemicals and household goods." Health care stocks have been among the top performers in 2013, up 7.3 percent year to date, but on Tuesday the sector fell 2.7 percent - its worst daily performance since January 2012. By contrast miners, which had dropped in line with commodity prices in the last two sessions to hit three-year lows, were one of the few sectors to rise, stabilising along with firmer metal prices. "The amount that the commodity stocks had sold off is akin to pricing in a global recession, which we think is very unlikely ... so this could represent an interesting buying opportunity," James Butterfill, global equity strategist at Coutts, said. Gold and silver prices recovered after hitting their lowest levels in around 2 years overnight, tempting some investors back into mining shares that suffered steep drops on Monday. Precious metal specialists Fresnillo and Randgold Resources added 7.9 percent and 3.1 percent respectively, having slumped on Monday. Xstrata and Glencore both rose in volume of over twice their 90-day average after Glencore won Chinese approval for its proposed takeover of the mining group. Miners - the biggest contributors to the FTSE's fall in the previous two sessions - added 5.2 points to the index, but were the only sector to add points to the index, which closed 39.02 points lower, or 0.6 percent, at 6,304.58. Sentiment was weak from the outset, with U.S. stocks having seen their worst day of the year on Monday following soft U.S. and Chinese data this week compounded by heightened uncertainty following deadly bomb explosions in Boston. Butterfill said that after a strong start to the year on the FTSE 100 the weakness didn't surprise him, with the index now back at his fair value of 6,310. "We haven't seen any improvement in (company profit) margins, so it's difficult for me to rationalise - in the short term - upgrading my view on the FTSE 100 at the moment," he said. (Editing by Jane Merriman) 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