Market overview: Stocks down, oil down, copper down

1630:Close Profit warnings or fears thereof (Pearson) were the name of the game on Thursday. Stocks ended the session with sharp losses, with Rolls Royce at the bottom of the pile after its most recent warning. Analysts at Investec followed up the news reiterating their recommendation to sell, while the talk on Bloomberg TV was of one analyst who said the shares could be in for the classic near-death aerospace stock price correction. That would see them drop about 80% from their most recent highs, versus approximately 50% at present. Oil futures continued their recent leg lower, giving back about 3% in late afternoon trading. Poor Chinese credit data - at least at the headline level - did little to help stocks. Three month copper futures on the LME slid 2% to $4,838 per metric tonne. FTSE 100 down 118.52 points to 6,178.68.

1610: CCH regional finance director has excercised his share options and sold, in typical CFO fashion, but the company's share price graph actually looks quite strong.

1605: Aviva has hired bankers to explore the possible sale of its Irish health insurance operations, Sky News reported. The broadcaster said it understood that Macquarie had been appointed to undertake the strategic review.

1453: "We remain concerned that today’s guidance does not reflect the strategic, end market, accounting or operational challenges that Rolls has to address over the coming years and believe these factors still represent material potential downside to EPS, cash and the share price," Investec says. The broker placed its forecasts and target price under review while retaining their 'sell' recommendation.

1257: Front month Brent crude futures are down 0.9% to reach $45.40 per barrel on the ICE. In its November Oil Market Report the cartel estimated the total overhang in commercial inventories within the OECD at 210m barrels versus the five-year average - the joint-highest in ten years.

1200: Bloomberg cites Peel Hunt analyst Alex De Groote as saying that he expects Pearson to issue another profit warning in the next few weeks and then to cut the dividend.

0852: In testimony before the European parliament, ECB president Mario Draghi has said that “normalisation of inflation could take longer than expected,” adding it had always said QE might continue past September 2016 should it be necessary. His remarks are pushing the euro/dollar 0.46% lower to 1.0709.

0830: British engine manufacturer Rolls Royce is crashing to earth after the company issued its fourth profit warning in just over a year and kicked off a review of its dividend policy. “After its worse year in a decade, punctuated by multiple profit warnings, today’s news of £650 million “headwinds” will do little to reassure long-term investors. The company is already worth 40% less than two years ago and it looks like the shares have still got further to fall. Warren East’s cost-cutting plans suggest he knows what needs to be done, but will it be enough to stem the bleeding?,” mused Alex Joyner, senior analyst at Galvan Research. Acting as a backdrop, all eyes will be on remarks from the ECB’s Draghi and Fed chair Yellen, with a raft of other Fed speakers scheduled for throughout the day. FTSE 100 down 35.81 to 6,261.34.