Silver miner Fresnillo (LON:FRES) and gold company Randgold Resources (LON:RRS) weighed on the UK’s top shares, despite most mining stocks making their way up the top tier.
Fresnillo and Randgold Resources were the main victims of Citi’s downbeat note on precious metals miners. The heavyweight broker cut them to ‘sell’ from ‘neutral’, with shares tumbling 4.4% and 3.7% respectively.
Citi now no longer believes any UK gold and silver stocks are worth a ‘buy’ tag.
“We have been concerned about gold and silver prices for some time and the recent further loss of momentum has concerned us even more,” said analyst Jon Bergtheil.
On Monday, the mining tipster urged investors to switch from precious metals to industrial metals stocks.
“We rated Fresnillo and Randgold Neutral at that time [October 25], and were unwilling downgrade them to Sell despite our valuation concerns,” Begtheil continued.
“We have been waiting for gold to lose further momentum before doing that and we feel that the time has now arrived.”
Retailers also struggled when it was revealed sales on the UK’s High Street in January were hit by the heavy snowfall.
B&Q owner Kingfisher (LON:KGF), Tesco (LON:TSCO) and Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS) all drifted lower at the end of the week.
The UK’s top shares edged 0.15% higher to 6,336, helped up by ITV (LON:ITV) at the top of the chart, with miners Antofagasta (LON:ANTO), Vedanta Resources (LON:VED) and Kazakhmys (LON:KAZ) all joining it more than 1% up.
Anglo American (LON:AAL) also made gains despite diving into the red after impairments on its Minas-Rio iron ore project in Brazil and a loss from its struggling platinum business.
BNP Exane Paribas analyst Ian Richards today said he expects a healthy market over the next few months.
“The global growth / inflation backdrop looks favourable – and equity valuations are likely to rise as a result,” he said.
“We think the oftcited event risks – be it European elections or US sequestration – are unlikely to result in sustained market weakness.”
The analyst tipped the second half of 2013 to be tougher, with the debate about US monetary policy likely to intensify later in the year.
Petropavlovsk (LON:POG) languished near the foot of the mid cap index as it was included in Citi’s raft of downgrades on miners, while IT and engineering specialist Invensys (LON:ISYS) lifted 3% after Morgan Stanley raised its recommendation to ‘overweight’.
GMA Resources (LON:GMA) led the AIM charge, up a staggering 55% following an issue of equity.
Software and services group FFastFill (LON:FFA) shares leapt 30% today after it emerged it was to be bought by Pattington in a £106mln deal.
Lombard Medical Technologies (LON:LMT) shot up 28% when it achieved what many hundreds of companies strive for each year but fail to deliver: US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approval for a device or a drug.
In this case it has received the sign-off from the one of the world’s most powerful regulatory bodies for Aorfix, a flexible stent graft used to treat abdominal aortic aneurysms (ruptures to the main artery).
Other notable rises came from Xtract Energy (LON:XTR), up 17%, and Woburn Energy (LON:WBN), up 15%.
SnackTime (LON:SNAK) shares wasted away, down 41% after a profits warning from the vending machines company.
Food producer Greencore (LON:GNC) lost 10% when it was implicated in the horsemeat scandal.
It was revealed Asda pulled the company’s bolognese sauce from its shelves after traces of horse DNA were found. Three more of its products were also withdrawn as a precautionary measure.