FTSE 100 movers: Admiral recovers; Pearson drops as it goes ex-div

London’s FTSE 100 index was down 0.1% at 6,852.46 in afternoon trade, as investors digested encouraging retail sales data and continued to mull over the latest minutes from the Federal Reserve.

Admiral gained ground, bouncing back from heavy losses in the previous session when the insurer’s results sparked concerns about its Solvency II position.

On Thursday, Deutsche Bank said the company was “down but not out”.

“The shares were priced for perfection ahead of the interims, and the interims duly disappointed. However, we don't think either of the negatives in the numbers are long-term structural issues. Of the two, a surprisingly high solvency sensitivity to low bond yields is the more serious potential hit to sentiment, but is actually quite small compared with annual free cash flow.”

In terms of sectors, miners were on the front foot as commodity prices advanced on the back of a weaker dollar and as investors adopted a risk-on approach, with Antofagasta, Glencore and BHP Billiton sharply higher.

Earlier this week, investors welcomed first-half results from Antofagasta, in which the Chilean copper miner improved earnings and kept its dividend flat thanks to some heavy cost-cutting, despite a drop in revenue.

On the downside, ex-dividends were weighing on the FTSE, with Pearson, British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands, Legal & General and Reckitt Benckiser all in the red as they traded with no entitlement to their latest dividend payout.

FTSE 100 - Risers

Antofagasta (ANTO) 565.50p 4.24%
London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) 2,866.00p 2.47%
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 240.10p 2.43%
Glencore (GLEN) 197.20p 2.39%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 156.60p 2.35%
Admiral Group (ADM) 2,129.00p 2.31%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,069.50p 2.25%
Persimmon (PSN) 1,787.00p 2.23%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,339.00p 2.14%
Travis Perkins (TPK) 1,554.00p 1.90%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Pearson (PSON) 859.00p -2.66%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 4,848.00p -2.00%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 186.80p -1.84%
Imperial Brands (IMB) 4,064.50p -1.55%
AstraZeneca (AZN) 5,014.00p -1.09%
Carnival (CCL) 3,609.00p -1.01%
Legal & General Group (LGEN) 208.60p -0.95%
Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 7,417.00p -0.93%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 631.60p -0.86%
BT Group (BT.A) 392.90p -0.73%