Sector movers: Airline, travel stocks tumble as miners recover

Airline, travel and leisure stocks tumbled on Wednesday, but parity was restored courtesy an uptick in mining stocks.

The FTSE 100 ended a mere 0.16% or 10.21 points higher at 6,278.97, while the FTSE 250 closed just 0.03% up at 17,089.09, with airlines and travel stocks dragged lower in wake of the Paris terror attacks.

Earlier in the session, two people were killed in a terror raid by French Police in the Saint-Denis suburb of Paris, leading to the arrest of five suspects following last Friday’s atrocities.

British Airways owner International Consolidated Airlines Group (down 3.13%) was the biggest faller on the FTSE 100, with blue chips Rolls-Royce (down 2.16%) and InterContinental Hotels Group (down 2.16%) not far behind.

Elsewhere, the Brent front-month futures contract was up a mere 0.02% or a cent to $43.58 per barrel, having risen as high as $44.55 in early trading before shedding the gains. Meanwhile, WTI was 1.06% or 43 cents lower at $40.24 per barrel, with both major contracts fluctuating within the recent $2 range.

Base metals hit fresh lows in late afternoon European trading, with copper sliding for the third session this week. The three-month copper delivery futures contract, already at a six-year low, fell another 1.1% to $4,634.00 per metric tonne on the London Metal Exchange. Additionally, LME's primary aluminium (broadly flat), nickel (down 1.3%), tin (down 0.7%), zinc (down 2.9%) and lead (down 1.2%) futures showed little signs of a recovery.

Concurrently, precious metals fell into negative territory, ahead of the publication of minutes of the US Federal Reserve’s last meeting with market sentiment in favour of an interest rate hike in December.

COMEX gold futures contract fell 0.10% or $1.10 to $1,067.50 an ounce, while spot gold was 0.23% or $2.50 lower at $1,067.80 an ounce. Away from gold, COMEX silver was down 0.99% or 14 cents to $14.03 an ounce, while spot platinum fell 0.84% or $7.19 to $846.91 an ounce.

Despite no obvious uptick in the commodity market sentiment, miners showed resilience to reverse the previous session’s losses. Antofagasta (up 5.84%), Glencore (up 5.04%) and Anglo American (up 4.28%) led the FTSE 100 gainers.

Additionally, Goldman Sachs upgraded Antofagasta to ‘neutral’ from ‘sell’ with an unchanged price target of 440p, saying the risk/reward is now balanced. The investment bank noted that since being added to the ‘sell’ list in February, the stock was down 35% versus the FTSE World Europe down 8.3%.

Petra Diamonds (up 7.31%) and Evraz (up 5.29%) were among the biggest gainers on the FTSE 250, alongside oilfield services midcap Hunting (up 10.48%).