A jumpy start on Wall Street did nothing to steady a volatile Footsie, but despite all the fluctuations the leading index finished hardly changed on the day.London lost 272 points in June, the third monthly decline in a row, and traded a range of well over 400 points.
Miners ENRC, Kazakhmys and Anglo American continued their losing streak on lingering concerns about Chinese demand. Metal prices were mixed Wednesday.
Rio Tinto also fell, though it had nothing to do with news that it’s raised its stake in Ivanhoe Mines by 7.3% to 29.6%, and will give the firm enough money to keep developing the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold complex.
Meanwhile, BHP Billiton is “disappointed” at the Australian Competition Tribunal's decision to let competitors operate their trains on its rail lines. Third parties are now allowed to negotiate with BHP for access to the Goldsworthy iron ore railway line in Western Australia.
The sector offset big gains at drug giant AstraZeneca and struggling oil major BP.
Anglo-Swedish firm Astra was best blue chip of the day after it received a favourable US ruling in its battle to keep control of the patents to its best-selling cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor. Cheaper, generic versions of Astra’s blockbuster drug cannot now enter the US market until 2016. Rival GlaxoSmithKline piggybacked higher on the news.
BP also improved, with the company having been “put in play” in the eyes of some by a note from JPMorgan Cazenove which suggested the company is ripe for plucking by a stronger rival such as Exxon Mobil. Meanwhile, the FT says Anadarko, a 25% partner to BP on the Macondo prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, approved several key aspects of the UK company's designs for the project.
Elsewhere in the oil sector Essar Energy, Petrofac and Cairn went well.
Asia-focused bank Standard Chartered confirmed the well-flagged story that it is to buy into the Agricultural Bank of China. The bank is buying $500m of the H shares being floated by Agricultural Bank of China, one of the top four commercial banks in China.
Barclays’ today confirmed that conditions in investment banking have been “softer” during the past two months and falling real estate prices have hit Barclays Corporate in Spain. But trends underlying the bank’s performance in the second quarter have been similar to those in the first three months of 2010.
Insurer Resolution was higher after returning from suspension and ahead of the deal to take over Axa’s UK life business.
Oil services specialist Hunting said trading in the first half has been ‘very positive’ despite the BP oil spill and sluggish natural gas prices, though the group admitted that there will be some impact from the Gulf of Mexico disaster in the second half.
Entertainment media retailer HMV announced results that were in line with market expectations, while sales burst through the Ł2bn level to hit a record level. More importantly for income investors who have taken advantage of the stock’s 13% dividend yield, the full year dividend has been held at 7.4p.
SDL, the information management solutions provider, has bought Dutch browser-based software developer Xopus. The initial consideration is €1.6m, with the company being bought on a debt free basis. The cost of the acquisition could rise to €2m, depending on the performance of Xopus in the year to 30 June 2011.
House price figures from the Nationwide building society has had shareholders of housebuilders racing for the exits. Nationwide said house prices edged up by just 0.1% month-on-month in June. Redrow, Taylor Wimpey and Persimmon are among the biggest losers among FTSE 250 constituents.
At the opposite end of the FTSE 250 leaderboard sits acquisitive insurance firm Resolution on its return from suspension. The shares had been suspended pending the acquisition of the UK life and pensions operation of Axa.
Big hits such as 'Avatar', 'Iron Man 2' and 'Sex and the City 2', helped cinema chain Cineworld overcome the competing attractions of the World Cup and lift revenue by 3.7% in the half year to June.
Car and van renter Northgate has returned to profit after the huge write-downs that nearly sank the company last year, but ruled out a dividend in view of the economic uncertainty in both its main markets.
A take-over looks off the cards for the moment at Cadogan Petroleum as the company confirmed that the bid approach it announced on 4 June has led to nothing.
Less than two weeks after denying reports that its Else mobile project was in trouble Israeli technology firm Emblaze has confirmed it is abandoning plans to manufacture the First ELSE mobile device. The company said it will concentrate its efforts on licensing the ELSE Intuition platform and technology in a move that will drastically reduce the company's operational and development costs.FTSE 100 - Risers
AstraZeneca (AZN) 3,169.00p +7.53%
BP (BP.) 318.90p +5.28%
Essar Energy (ESSR) 475.90p +4.00%
Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 1,186.00p +2.24%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 2,136.50p +1.86%
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,143.00p +1.78%
Cairn Energy (CNE) 414.90p +1.64%
Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 3,127.00p +1.53%
Unilever (ULVR) 1,801.00p +1.35%
Carnival (CCL) 2,183.00p +1.35%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Man Group (EMG) 223.60p -7.26%
Kazakhmys (KAZ) 992.50p -3.83%
Eurasian Natural Resources (ENRC) 860.00p -3.75%
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 1,064.00p -3.71%
Wolseley (WOS) 1,338.00p -3.60%
Invensys (ISYS) 241.90p -3.43%
Schroders NV (SDRC) 1,001.00p -3.19%
Lonmin (LMI) 1,411.00p -3.02%
3i Group (III) 266.10p -2.95%
Experian Group (EXPN) 586.00p -2.66%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Connaught (CNT) 115.00p +7.28%
Micro Focus International Plc (MCRO) 423.00p +5.33%
Resolution (RSL) 63.30p +4.98%
Hansen Transmissions International (HSN) 74.00p +4.96%
Hansteen Holdings (HSTN) 67.00p +4.69%
DS Smith (SMDS) 121.00p +4.31%
Mcbride (MCB) 130.00p +3.92%
Talvivaara Mining Company (TALV) 365.00p +3.60%
Xchanging (XCH) 195.80p +3.60%
BTG (BGC) 199.70p +3.42%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 26.30p -7.17%
Redrow (RDW) 112.40p -5.70%
PartyGaming (PRTY) 217.70p -5.39%
Brown (N.) Group (BWNG) 250.30p -5.19%
Halfords Group (HFD) 492.00p -5.11%
SThree (STHR) 251.90p -4.94%
Aquarius Platinum Ltd. (AQP) 328.30p -4.15%
Enterprise Inns (ETI) 87.35p -4.06%
Galiform (GFRM) 56.75p -3.81%
Promethean World (PRW) 181.90p -3.76%
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