Sector Movers: Gold miners duck wider resource stocks slump

Resource stocks plummeted on Tuesday, as oil markets remained volatile and base metals had an unconvincing session.

At the close of proceedings, the FTSE 100 ended 1.19% or 73.49 points lower at 6091.23, while the FTSE 250 closed 0.71% or 120.05 points lower at 16,725.59. Oil futures extended declines on the back of an Iran-inspired price pullback, while precious metals staged a recovery following a lacklustre start to the week.

At 1745 BST, the Brent front month futures contract was broadly flat or up a cent at a three-week low of $37.70 per barrel, having registered losses for much of the European session. WTI futures mirrored the pattern but were also broadly flat at $35.70 per barrel.

The predictive $40 per barrel price bottom was firmly breached after Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh told the Mehr News agency over the weekend that Tehran would continue increasing its production and exports. His remarks came ahead of an oil producers’ conference in Doha on 17 April that Iran has decided not to attend.

Last Friday, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Bloomberg: “If all countries agree to freeze production, we will be among them.”

He added that Iran needed to be among those countries “without a doubt” raising fears of oversupply and tussle for market share between the Saudis and Iranians.

Away from oil markets, precious metals reversed the previous session’s losses as the dollar weakened further against the yen. The COMEX gold June futures contract rose 0.90% or $11.01 to $1230.30 an ounce, while spot gold was down 1.14% or $13.87 to $1,229.30 an ounce.

COMEX silver rose 1.24% or 19 cents to $15.13 an ounce, while spot platinum also rose 0.91% or $8.57 to $950.32 an ounce.

Headline base metal futures saw lacklustre trading across the London Metal Exchange board. At 1635 BST, three-month futures contracts of primary aluminium (-0.8%), lead (-0.3%), tin (-1.1%) and copper (-0.2%) were marginally in negative territory.

Predictably, diversified miner Glencore (-5.31%) was the biggest FTSE 100 faller, with BHP Billiton (-4.57%) and Anglo American (-3.98%) in close attendance. On the FTSE 250, Weir Group (-4.93%) and Evraz (-4.41%) were among the biggest resource sector fallers.

However, with precious metals seeing an uptick, Randgold Resources (+2.10%) and Fresnillo (+0.77%) registered decent gains among the blue chips.

Away from resource stocks, Asia-focussed Standard Chartered (-4.28%) bank took a hammering. However, housebuilders were had a positive session after a poll by OBR showed 51% of Britons planned on voting to remain in the EU at the 23 June referendum.

Berkeley Group Holdings (+2.56%) led the way, followed closely by Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey.

Payments firm Worldpay was on the front foot again on Tuesday, with Accendo Markets citing a revival of interest into April/Q2. On the retailer sector front, supermarket Tesco was lower after Deutsche Bank downgraded its stance on the stock to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’ with an unchanged price target of 210p.

Research by Kantar Worldpanel also revealed the supermarket, along with J Sainsbury, had lost market share to rivals. Moss Bros Group’s shares gained after the menswear retailer posted a rise in full year profit and sounded an upbeat note on current trading.

Card Factory edged higher after reporting its full year pre-tax profit almost doubled to £83.7m, driven by strong sales and new store openings.

Finally, Electrocomponents (+8.86%) ended up as the biggest FTSE250 gainer after saying it expected full year profits to hit the top end of market expectations, following a solid fourth quarter in which the UK recovery gained pace.