FTSE 100 movers: Property stocks rally, miners slide

The FTSE 100 gained 0.47% to 6,728.99 points at the close, buoyed by a rally in real estate and housebuilder stocks.

Real estate investors and housebuilders, including Land Securities and Persimmon, a day after a report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) consultancy suggested loosening the rules for funding availability for housebuilding.

Confidence in the sector as also given a boost by Bank of England's updated Agents’ Summary of Business Conditions survey for July which found there was no clear evidence of a “sharp general slowing” in economic activity post-Brexit. While uncertainty rose markedly after the referendum outcome, firms were looking to continue business as usual.

Another riser was Admiral Group as UBS upgraded the motor insurer to ‘buy’ from ‘neutral’ and raised the target price to 2,339p from 1,840p.

On the downside, miners were the biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 as metal prices dropped.

“Some investors are no doubt concerned that, despite a longer-term environment that looks more congenial for mining firms, current elevated valuations leave little room for disappointment,” said Chris Beauchamp, senior market analyst at IG. “Still, given a few more days of declines we might see investors looking to buy into weakness, once the newsflow from the sector dries up.”

Anglo American shares were also dragged lower after the miner cut its full-year copper production guidance.

Fresnillo was caught up in a sector-wide selloff despite strong first-quarter production leading to full year gold guidance being raised.

BHP Billiton declined as it posted its operational review for the year to end-June, confirming it exceeded full-year production guidance for petroleum, copper and metallurgical coal, and achieved record full-year production at Western Australia Iron Ore.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 6,731.86 0.51%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 17,031.02 0.74%
techMARK (TASX) 3,420.01 0.83%

FTSE 100 - Risers

St James's Place (STJ) 899.50p 4.71%
Legal & General Group (LGEN) 197.30p 3.08%
Sage Group (SGE) 697.00p 3.03%
Land Securities Group (LAND) 1,103.00p 2.70%
Admiral Group (ADM) 2,099.00p 2.64%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 617.20p 2.56%
Persimmon (PSN) 1,651.00p 2.48%
WPP (WPP) 1,695.00p 2.48%
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 56.73p 2.35%
GKN (GKN) 286.70p 2.25%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Anglo American (AAL) 777.70p -4.41%
Fresnillo (FRES) 1,823.00p -2.88%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 924.30p -2.55%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 8,715.00p -2.52%
Glencore (GLEN) 176.35p -1.97%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 2,335.50p -1.75%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 481.70p -1.73%
Tesco (TSCO) 161.40p -1.44%
Next (NXT) 5,040.00p -0.98%
BT Group (BT.A) 389.90p -0.68%