Sector movers: Natural resource stocks hammer London market

Declines in metal futures saw commodities linked stocks drag the London market lower on Thursday.

The FTSE 100 ended 0.32% or 19.88 points lower at 6,275.28, while the FTSE 250 closed 0.43% or 72.83 points lower at 17039.82. Data released overnight from China suggested October’s headline inflation stood at 1.3%, below market forecasts of 1.5%, and 1.6% recorded in September, indicating a slowdown in consumer demand.

Base metals felt the heat, as the three-month copper delivery futures contract was down 1.2% to $4,914.50 per metric tonne in late afternoon trading on the London Metal Exchange, trading near levels last recorded in 2009.

Additionally, primary aluminium (down 2.4%), lead (down 2.0%), nickel (down 0.9%) and zinc (down 3.9%) futures also traded lower. Miners Anglo American (down 4.70%) and Glencore (down 4.24%) led blue chip stock lower.

Midcap fallers also included several mining stocks, with Kaz Minerals (down 14.85%), Vedanta Resources (down 7.64%) and Petra Diamonds (down 5.53%) among the biggest FTSE 250 fallers.

The Brent front-month futures contract for December delivery was up 0.13% or 28 cents to $47.32 per barrel, while WTI was up 1.07% or 47 cents at $44.34 per barrel, with both benchmarks broadly staying in the previous session’s range as oversupply perceptions continued to weigh on market sentiment. That sent Tullow Oil (down 6.36%) and Premier Oil (down 4.77%) into negative territory.

On a positive note, a number of stocks registered gains but had were scattered across the sectors board. Experian surged on news that it is extending its share buyback scheme, returning an additional $200m (£132.4m) to shareholders.

Despite reporting a drop in profit after tax from $409m to $331m, the company also upped its first interim dividend of 12.5 cents per share – an increase of 2% to reflect the underlying strength of the business.

Vodafone’s service revenues bounced back in the second quarter as many of Europe’s telecoms markets made an encouraging return to growth on the back of surging demand for mobile data.

While revenue for the first half fell 2.3% to £20.3bn, EBITDA rose 1.9% to £5.8bn thanks to better top-line trends and good cost control in Europe and Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific. BT, along with ITV, Pearson and Inmarsat also notched up gains in late afternoon trading.