Grocers and miners lead gains

Miners and grocers led gains on the market as the selling pressure on two of the past week's worst performers eased a bit.

Gains in the former were particularly noteworthy, coming as they did in the face of an across-the-board retreat in commodity prices, in part as the US dollar index strengthened.

Three-month copper futures on the LME ended the Friday session with losses of 1.9% to $4,617.00 per metric tonne and iron ore and rebar futures closed with sharp losses overnight on the Dalian Commodities Exchange.

On the demand side of the equation, Friday's loan and credit data out of the People's Republic of China, referencing the month of April, revealed a slowdown in total social financing from 2.34trn yuan in March to 751bn yuan in April (consensus: 1.3trn yuan).

For some observers, that reflected Beijing's decision to heed warnings that it might have gone over the top with its recent credit easing.

However, Julian Evans-Pritchard at Capital Economics pointed out how government borrowing had also surged, which was not apparent in the TSF measure.

"Growth in our measure of outstanding broad credit which combines TSF and government bonds – and is therefore more directly comparable with the TSF data prior to the debt swap programme starting – rose to a 26-month high in April," Evans-Pritchard said.

"Given the usual lag of around six months between credit growth and economic activity, this should sustain the current cyclical upturn until the end of the year but probably not much longer – with further policy easing now looking unlikely, credit growth is likely to begin slowing again next quarter," he added.

Data on Chinese retail sales, industrial production and investment trends were scheduled for release over the coming weekend.

To take note of perhaps, as of 20:16 BST shares of US miners were the best performers on Wall Street against the backdrop of a falling market.

Stock in Asia-focused lender StanChart was also among the top performers on the top flight index on Friday.

The largest banking groups all clocked in with some of the largest percentage gains, despite warnings from IMF managing director Christine Lagarde regarding the risks that Brexit might entail for the UK economy.

Coincidentally, IG’s Brexit binary was only attaching a 29% probability to such a scenario as of the close of trading.

Shares of retailers also figured prominently near the top of the leaderboard on Friday, with markets apparently keying off of Tesco’s latest annual report according to some analysts.

The sector was also the best performer at the pan-European level, with the DJ Stoxx 600 sector gauge rising by 1.10% to 307.06.

Going the other way were shares of Media stocks as French telecommunications services provider Eutelsat decided to "adjust" its targets for 2016 and 2017 to "reflect tougher industry conditions" and adapt to a lower-growth environment.

"Eutelsat is adapting to slowing industry-wide momentum, undertaking a wide-ranging review of its organization and priorities with an emphasis on cash-flow generation and margin support. A detailed update will be provided in July," the company said in a statement.

The news led some analysts to wonder aloud about just how realistic, or not, London-listed rival Inmarsat's own recent guidance had been.

Weakness in Media stocks was the main drag on the pan-European Stoxx 600.

ITV, for its part, fell afoul of downward price target revisions from multiple brokers, including Deutsche Bank.

On 12 May the broadcaster cut its guidance for advertising revenues, saying clients were holding back on ad spend ahead of the EU referendum.

Top performing sectors so far today
Industrial Metals & Mining 1,134.57 +3.88%
Food & Drug Retailers 2,626.44 +1.97%
Banks 3,139.62 +1.81%
Technology Hardware & Equipment 1,134.83 +1.40%
Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology 12,294.62 +1.28%

Bottom performing sectors so far today
Insurance (non-life) 2,464.72 -0.92%
Forestry & Paper 14,509.02 -0.81%
Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 13,308.09 -0.69%
Software & Computer Services 1,642.64 -0.54%
Industrial Transportation 2,784.97 -0.50%