FTSE 100 movers: Royal Mail rebounds, oil and gas stocks lower

UK stocks declined on Friday, led by ongoing Greed debt concerns and weakness in the industrial metals, construction and engineering sectors.

As of 15:00 BST, the FTSE 100 was trading 0.84% lower at 6,789.

Royal Mail rebounded from Thursday's losses, which came as the Treasury offloaded half of its stake in the postal operator for £750m and rival PostNL announced the suspension of Whistl’s UK direct delivery operations.

BT Group surged despite regulator Ofcom proposing controls on the wholesale prices it charges for products using leased telecoms lines, which provide high-speed links for businesses and providers of 'superfast' broadband and mobile services. The controls should lead to significant real-terms price reductions for most customers.

Miners Glencore, BHP Billiton, Fresnillo, Rio Tinto and Anglo American were trading higher, despite concerns that the economy of top commodities consumer China may be slowing, following recent disappointing data.

Oil and gas stocks were mostly lower, including heavyweight producer Royal Dutch Shell, as Brent crude slipped on Saudi Arabia'a announcement it was ready to increase output if necessary, exacerbating oversupply concerns.

CRH reversed Thursday's gains, which were driven by reports that it will take part in the preliminary bidding for South Korean Tongyang Cement & Energy on 12 June, for which it has supposedly hired Goldman Sachs as an underwriter.

Risers

Royal Mail (RMG) 505.50p +2.47%
BT Group (BT.A) 452.00p +1.15%
ITV (ITV) 269.10p +0.94%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 730.50p +0.41%
Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 3,276.00p +0.28%
Sky (SKY) 1,040.00p +0.10%
Glencore (GLEN) 281.35p +0.04%

Fallers
Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 3,097.00p -3.22%
CRH (CRH) 1,839.00p -2.44%
Kingfisher (KGF) 374.90p -2.11%
St James's Place (STJ) 881.50p -2.11%
Aggreko (AGK) 1,496.00p -2.09%
Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 417.80p -2.06%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,577.00p -1.99%
Unilever (ULVR) 2,793.00p -1.97%
Weir Group (WEIR) 1,839.00p -1.97%
Hikma Pharmaceuticals (HIK) 1,923.00p -1.94%