Market overview: Sports Direct paces gainers, Baltic Dry sinks to 30-year low

1630:Close Among London's equities, Sports Direct paced gainers in Friday's market, as risk sentiment continued to bounce back amid a chorus of mostly soothing remarks from the policy-makers and heavy-hitters from the finance world assembled in Davos. Miners were again at the bottom of the pile, despite another day of gains for copper. Three-month copper futures finished up by 1.4% at $4,467.50 per metric tonne in LME trading. Pearson also gave back some of the previous session's gains. Stock in Virgin Money bounced back violently following the shares poor start to 2016. Acting as a backdrop, WTI futures registered their biggest two-day gain since August. The Baltic Dry Index, which covers measures shipping rates for dry commodities such grain and iron ore– and is watched as a proxy for Chinese demand, sank to 354 points, its lowest ever level since the index was launched by the Baltic Exchange in 1985. FTSE 100 up 126.22 points to 5,900.01.

1445: Markit's US manufacturing sector PMI rose in January to 52.7 from the previous month's 38-month low of 51.2.

1330: Three-month copper futures are 1.8% higher to $4,456.25 per metric tonne on the LME.

1030: In today's FT Leo Lewis points out speculation that sovereign wealth funds have been selling Japan stocks to raise cash, taking advantage of last year's gains in the country's equities to book profits. Given the rise on Friday in the Nikkei-225 and accompanying jump in oil futures, or vice-versa rather, one ca only wonder if he is not on to something.

0930: UK retail sales volumes dropped 1.0% month-on-month in December, easily outpacing the 0.1% dip which analysts had projected. Excluding petrol they were down by 1.4%.

0914: Analysts at Goldman Sachs have reportedly lowered their end-of-year forecast for euro/dollar to 0.95.

0913: "The message from our latest survey suggests a further deterioration in the Chinese copper market, though seasonality is coming into play," analysts at Macquarie are telling clients.

0911: Stocks have started the day on the up following across-the-aboard gains in Asian stock market trading overnight. Antofagasta is at the top of the leaderboard, with some observers referencing positive comments from analysts at Citi. Oil futures are sharply higher early on; speaking from Davos Saudi Aramco’s chairman described the recent drop in energy quotes as “irrational”. Nevertheless, he added his country would not cut production alone. Sports Direct was only sporting good gains. After the close of markets on Thursday it surfaced that it had upped its stake in US-based Iconix. All eyes are on the policy-sensitive remarks coming out of the WEF in Davos. FTSE 100 up 108.98 to 5882.77.