Sector Movers: Resource stocks keep London market on green turf

Resource stocks managed to keep headline London indices in marginally positive territory on Monday, following an uptick in major commodity futures contracts.

At the close of proceedings, the FTSE 100 ended a mere 0.02% or 1.08 points higher at 6097.09, while the FTSE 250 ended 0.22% or 36.04 points higher at 16,603.08. Oil futures began the week on a positive footing, as Saudi Arabia said it would work with other producers to limit oil market volatility.

"The kingdom (of Saudi Arabia) seeks to achieve stability in the oil markets and will always remain in contact with all main producers in an attempt to limit volatility and it welcomes any cooperative action," the Saudi cabinet said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia and fellow OPEC members Venezuela and Qatar, agreed with non-OPEC Russia this month to freeze output at January levels. But Iran refused to join in while it takes advantage of the recent lifting of its international economic sanctions.

At 1702 GMT, the Brent front month futures contract was up 2.51% or 88 cents to $35.98 per barrel, while the WTI rose 2.29% or 75 cents to $33.53 per barrel. However, analysts remain unconvinced about the possibility of a coordinated OPEC and non-OPEC production freeze, and whether the move itself would have a tangible impact, if it were to materialise.

Away from oil markets, precious metals saw a marginal recovery. The COMEX front-month gold futures contract was up $1.06% or $12.90 at $1,239.10 an ounce, while spot gold was up 0.73% or $8.94 to $1,232.40 an ounce.

COMEX silver rose 1.06% or 16 cents to $14.87 an ounce, and spot platinum headed 1.37% or $12.55 higher as well to $926.80 an ounce.

Headline base metal futures were higher across the London Metal Exchange board. At 1635 GMT, three-month futures contracts of nickel (up 0.2%), lead (up 1.8%), tin (up 0.2%) and primary aluminium (up 1.3%) headed higher, but the copper contract shed 0.5%.

Predictably, Anglo American (up 6.58%) and Glencore (up 3.90%) were among the biggest FTSE 100 gainers. On the FTSE 250, Vedanta Resources led way, posting a gain of 9% or 22.8p to 276.10p, ending the session as the biggest riser across the main market following positive taxation norms revealed in India’s budget.

Under new fiscal rules, India will shelve export taxes on low-grade iron ore, a move that should benefit the FTSE 250 miner but could lead to further worldwide oversupply.

Announcing a populist budget, the Indian government said the export tax on low grade iron ore would be scrapped but it would impose a higher import duty on aluminium, another commodity Vedanta produces.

Vedanta restarted exports from its Goa iron ore operations last autumn, with production of around 3.5m tons forecast by the 31 March year end, on top of the 2.3m annual capped output from the neighbouring state of Karnataka.

Oilfield services company Amec Foster Wheeler (up 5.71%) was another FTSE 250 high riser, along with rival Weir Group (up 2.26%), despite the latter being hit by a downgrade from Moody’s.

Away from resource stocks, pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca (down 2.32%) found itself in the company of blue chip losers, despite announcing that it has entered into a licensing deal with China Medical System Holdings Ltd for the commercialisation rights in China to its hypertension medicine Plendil.

HSBC was in the red after Bernstein downgraded the stock to ‘underperform’ from ‘market perform’ and cut the price target to 380p from 550p.

Elsewhere, supermarket retailer Tesco headed lower after denying reports it was planning to cut store staff numbers by 39,000 over the next three years.

Rival Morrison’s shares rose after it announced a new supply agreement with online retailer Amazon that will make hundreds of its products available to Amazon Prime Now and Amazon Pantry customers in the coming months.