NEW YORK: Britain’s top equity index has fallen, extending losses from the previous session caused by disappointment over the European Central Bank’s policy update, with miners and oil stocks reversing previous gains following a statement by OPEC.
OPEC members failed to agree an oil production ceiling on Friday at a meeting that ended in acrimony, after Iran said it would not consider any production curbs until it restores output scaled back for years under Western sanctions.
Oil stocks BP and Royal Dutch Shell both slumped 2.4 per cent, while miners Glencore and Anglo American were down 3.2 per cent and 2.8 per cent respectively.
Among other fallers, hotels, coffee shops and restaurant operator Whitbread slid nearly 3 per cent after analysts at Barclays downgraded their rating on Whitbread to “equal weight” from “overweight”.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 index was down 0.6 per cent at 6,238.29 points at its close, with markets sent lower following robust US non-farm payrolls data which signalled that a rate rise in the US was on the cards for December.
“The rate rise is not the focus – the focus is how dovish (the Fed is) going to be going forward about further rate rises,” said Zeg Choudhry, managing director at LONTRAD.
He added that he had expected markets to react positively to the figure.
Among the biggest gainers, housebuilder Berkeley rose 7.5 per cent after the company said it was on course to meet profit targets. Fellow housebuilders Taylor Wimpey, Barratt Developments and Persimmon all gained between 0.9 and 1.4 per cent.
“(Berkeley Group Holdings have) been quite forthcoming on their dividend policies. Returning cash to investors is something that the market always likes, so in sympathy with that we are seeing an outperformance among the housebuilders,” said Jonathan Roy, advisory investment manager at Charles Hanover investments.
