FTSE 100 movers: Anglo American falls to 16-year lows

The FTSE 100 was down for most of the day on Thursday, with the market going into the black briefly after the Bank of England kept interest rates unchanged.

By mid-afternoon, the market was back into the red, down 22.58 points (0.35%) to 6,390.3 points.

Anglo American was the big faller due to a drop in copper prices. After the company’s stock rose more than its sector peers over the week, the market quickly corrected itself by seeing the price drop by over 6% and falling to 16-year lows.

Standard Chartered took a hit on the back of a broker note from Macquarie. It warned that the bank’s restructuring plan is "rather uninspiring", and downgraded its recommendation. In its opinion, the bank had turned from a '2018 hope story' into a '2020 hope story'. The Asia-focused lender's strategic plan lacked direction, Macquarie said, and the capital raise only addressed the smallest of the lender's three problems. The other two were asset quality and "a potentially broken business model that has to be restructured by exiting subscale and underperforming markets and businesses.”

News from Coca-Cola HBC left a sour taste in the mouths of investors. The drinks giant bottled 5.4% more cases of fizzy drinks in the third quarter as favourable weather helped sales but exchange rates and pricing efforts in emerging markets put a cap on revenues. Total group revenue in the quarter of €1.77bn was a 2.7% fall from the same period last year and slightly short of analyst consensus for €1.79bn.

On the other side of the book, AstraZeneca’s third quarter revenues were hit by foreign exchange woes. But the company has upgraded its revenue guidance for the full year from a small decline to in line with the previous year, with core EPS now expected to grow in the mid-to-high single digits, versus a low single digit percentage increase previously. The market looked past the bad news and forced the price up to make AstraZeneca to lead the market.

The market was also content with RSA Insurance’s mixed bag of results. It booked a net loss of £16m in the third quarter as a result of the earthquake in Chile, but insisted its turnaround plan is on track as it posted a 1% rise in underlying premium income in the first nine months of the year. Core group underlying net premiums rose 1% to £4.4bn from last year, while tangible net asset value increased to £3bn from £2.9bn at the end of June. At actual exchange rates, net premiums were down 5%.The company said it saw strong positive momentum in the first nine months of the year, with third-quarter profit trends well above 2014 and improving again on those reported in the first half.

FTSE 100 - Risers

AstraZeneca (AZN) 4,290.00p 3.94%
RSA Insurance Group (RSA) 429.00p 3.35%
easyJet (EZJ) 1,779.00p 2.71%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 586.50p 2.36%
Persimmon (PSN) 1,902.00p 2.31%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 3,160.00p 2.20%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 184.10p 2.11%
Hammerson (HMSO) 621.50p 2.05%
Shire Plc (SHP) 4,805.00p 2.04%
Hikma Pharmaceuticals (HIK) 2,087.00p 1.90%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Anglo American (AAL) 542.50p -6.32%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 634.50p -5.19%
Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 170.00p -4.23%
Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 352.60p -3.26%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,185.00p -2.95%
Glencore (GLEN) 122.25p -2.86%
Pearson (PSON) 843.50p -2.77%
Intertek Group (ITRK) 2,626.00p -2.63%
Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) 1,550.00p -2.45%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 524.50p -2.42%