London midday: Equities advance as miners and banking shares rally

UK equities advanced on Friday with banking and mining stocks leading the way as investors reassessed a jam-packed week of events.

With few notable releases on Friday’s economic calendar, the market has been left to mull over proceedings from the past few days which has included policy decisions from the Bank of England, Bank of Japan and Federal Reserve, a raft of economic data and the UK Budget 2016.

Lifting stocks in midday trading, oil prices reversed morning declines. Brent crude rose 1.6% to $42.23 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate climbed 1.7% to $40.90 per barrel at 1136 GMT.

In the Eurozone, German producer prices fell more than expected in February, according to the latest data from Destatis. Producer prices dropped 0.5% from January, which was steeper than the 0.2% decline pencilled in by economists, as energy prices slid 9.4% on the month. On the year, producer prices were down 3%, missing expectations for a 2.6% drop.

Meanwhile, the European Central Bank’s chief economist Peter Praet said further cuts to interest rates are possible if the central bank’s recently announced barrage of measures fail to boost the economy.

“We have not reached the physical lower bound. If new negative shocks should worsen the outlook or if financing conditions should not adjust in the direction and to the extent that is necessary to boost the economy and inflation, a rate reduction remains in our armoury,” he told Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

Still to come, the US consumer confidence survey from the University of Michigan will be released at 1400 GMT.

On the company front, banking stocks recovered from the previous session’s losses with Standard Chartered, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland on the rise.

Mining stocks, including Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Glencore, were on the front foot due to some profit taking after gains on Thursday.

Going the other way, Berkeley Group was in the red despite saying it expected current year results to be at the top end of expectations, after absorbing approximately £25m of accelerated operating expenses. Fellow housebuilders Persimmon, Barratt Developments and Taylor Wimpey also declined.

“With the sector looking so fully valued versus its position just a couple of years ago, we should get used to this share price reaction – the easy days for the sector are now well behind it,” said Chris Beauchamp, senior market analyst at IG.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 6,226.84 0.41%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 16,943.08 0.56%
techMARK (TASX) 3,089.41 0.33%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Sports Direct International (SPD) 433.90p 8.07%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 493.90p 7.59%
Anglo American (AAL) 561.40p 3.79%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 848.90p 3.27%
Smiths Group (SMIN) 1,108.00p 2.97%
Whitbread (WTB) 3,923.00p 2.86%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 721.50p 2.85%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 236.90p 2.60%
Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 296.30p 2.53%
Glencore (GLEN) 161.70p 2.34%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 3,173.00p -2.58%
Mondi (MNDI) 1,355.00p -2.17%
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 277.00p -1.60%
Persimmon (PSN) 2,086.00p -1.28%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 574.50p -1.20%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 186.50p -1.06%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 6,585.00p -1.05%
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,386.00p -0.96%
Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 1,726.50p -0.69%
Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 6,626.00p -0.67%

FTSE 250 - Risers

Clarkson (CKN) 2,380.00p 12.80%
BGEO Group (BGEO) 2,018.00p 4.40%
Evraz (EVR) 90.40p 4.33%
Renishaw (RSW) 1,999.00p 4.22%
Mitchells & Butlers (MAB) 277.20p 4.13%
Enterprise Inns (ETI) 80.35p 4.01%
Weir Group (WEIR) 1,122.00p 3.70%
OneSavings Bank (OSB) 312.00p 3.48%
Vedanta Resources (VED) 330.30p 3.45%
International Personal Finance (IPF) 296.00p 3.35%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Centamin (DI) (CEY) 94.25p -3.28%
Kennedy Wilson Europe Real Estate (KWE) 1,175.00p -2.25%
Debenhams (DEB) 74.55p -2.23%
Lookers (LOOK) 160.50p -2.07%
Auto Trader Group (AUTO) 368.90p -1.89%
Ibstock (IBST) 198.00p -1.79%
Ted Baker (TED) 2,880.00p -1.74%
Halma (HLMA) 876.00p -1.74%
AO World (AO.) 164.20p -1.74%
UK Commercial Property Trust (UKCM) 82.80p -1.43%