Market overview: FTSE slips on drop in oil futures

1630:Close Stocks reverted early gains to see the week out lower as copper and oil markets continued to come under pressure despite much larger than expected job gains for December in the US, although wage growth undershot analysts’ forecasts again. Worries about China also continued to hound investors. Against that backdrop, after today’s data Stateside Barclays said to clients that: “trends in private consumption growth and other components of domestic demand bear further watching, particularly if labor markets were to slow in the months ahead or if the headwinds from abroad were to intensify substantially." Tesco led to the upside on the back of an upgrade out of analysts at Barclays. That came alongside gains in the likes of BAE Systems and EasyJet. Shares in Sports Direct cratered after the company issued a profit warning. FTSE 100 down 41.64 to 5,912.44.

1624: Front month Brent crude futures have moved sharply lower and are now falling 2.74% to $32.85 per barrel on the ICE.

1545: Following an early rise of three basis points the yield on the benchmark two-year US Treasury note is flat at 0.95%.

1457: Front month West Texas Intermediate futures are down 0.36% to $33.15 per barrel on ICE.

1331: Royal Dutch Shell is Barclays top pick in the sector, the broker said in a research report sent to clients.

1330: The US economy created 292,000 new jobs in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

1330: Three-month copper futures are down by 0.4% to $4,488.75 per metric tonne in LME trading.

1103: JP Morgan adds Tullow Oil to its analyst focus list, cuts BP target price to 350p from 400p. The broker's targets for Ophir, Tullow and Premier Oil were also lowered.

1102: PBoC says it wants to maintain a basically stable yuan.

1101: UBS continues to see further earnings recovery and upside for the European airline shares, stays positive on Ryanair, Wizz and IAG.

0930: The UK's trade deficit improved to -£3.2bn in November (consensus: -£2.7bn) from a downwardly revised print of -£3.51bn for the month before. The latter was down from a preliminary print of -£4.14bn. "Net trade looks set to subtract about 0.5 percentage points from quarter-on-quarter GDP growth in Q4, assuming no erratic movements in December. With the real effective exchange rate still close to its pre-recession peak, net trade is likely to remain a significant brake on the economic recovery over the coming quarters," Samuel Tombs at Pantheon Macroeconomics says.

0917: Bank of America ups GKN to buy from underperform.

0915: Shares in Tesco are leading a bounce in UK stocks, boosted by an upgrade out of Barclays. Acting as a backdrop, overnight the People’s Bank of China set a slightly higher fixing for the yuan, moving it up 0.02% to 6.5636. State-owned funds also waded into the debris of the recent stockmarket rout, scooping up financials and large-cap stocks. That lit a fire – a small one admittedly – under oil futures, despite which the oil majors were still under water in the early going. All eyes are now on this afternoon US jobs report for December. Nonetheless, China will not be far from traders’ minds. Goldman reportedly marked up its forecasts for dollar/yuan this year and next. “The uneasiness among investors remains high as each day brings about a new wave questions about [Chinese] government policy,” Deutsche Bank’s Michael Reid said. FTSE 100 up 55.83 points to 6,009.86.