UK shares struggled to find direction today, preferring to wait for Wall Street, which suffered sharp losses during yesterday's session. The FTSE 100 seesawed between positive and negative territory. Oil remained relatively flat, but most industrial metals came under pressure. Gold and platinum put in good performance; silver was subdued.
An inflation report from the Bank of England offered little impetus to the markets. Mervin King, top dog at the Bank of England came under heavy scrutiny from journalists during Q&A, defending the Bank's actions up to and since the collapse of US investment bank, Lehman Brothers in September 2008.
During the Q&A, the Mr. King hinted that further interest rate cuts were on the cards, and that the bank was keen to boost the supply of broad money into the UK economy.
Industrial Metals, Household Goods, Aerospace & Defence and Food Producers were the best performing sectors in the FTSE 350, while the usual suspects were the worst performers: Financials, Real Estate, and Construction & Materials.
Commodities
Despite a rather mixed performance from commodities, many mining and oil & gas companies delivered decent gains today. Copper spot prices slipped 1.8% to $1.53/pound, Nickel retreated 2.5% to $4.73/pound and zinc came under pressure, down 0.85% to $0.51/pound. Aluminum and lead prices climbed slightly. Oil was little changed at $37/barrel on Nymex. The story was very different for precious metals. Gold put in another good day at the office, jumping $32 to $946/ounce, silver slipped marginally to $12.96/ounce, while platinum and palladium put in solid performances, climbing 5% and 3.3% respectively to $1031/ounce and $214/ounce.
Precious metal equities reacted favourably. Platinum miner, Lonmin (LSE: LMI) jumped 9%, Aquarius Platinum (LSE: AQP) climbed 4.5%. Junior platinum developer Platmin (AIM & TSX: PPN) failed to gain.
Gold and silver producers were also notable gainers. Randgold Resources (LSE:RRS), which was recently promoted to the FTSE 100, jumped 8%, Yamana Gold (LSE:YAU) climbed 6.5%, Peter Hambro Mining (AIM:POG) tacked on 2.5%, as did Oxus Gold (AIM:OXS). Gold exploration minnow, Kryso Resources (AIM:KYS) added 25%.
Silver producers also enjoyed a day in the sun. Fresnillo (LSE: FRES) and Hochschild Mining (LSE:HOC) added 7.2% and 7.5% respectively.
The big diversified miners put in a more mixed performance. BHP Billiton (LSE: BLT) fell 1% and Anglo American (LSE: AAL) dropped 3.2% but Xstrata (LSE: XTA) climbed 3.2% and Rio Tinto (LSE:RIO) added 2.7% on continued speculation that Chinese group Chinalco is preparing to invest $20 billion.
Copper focused players also put in a mixed performance. Vedanta (LSE :VED) slipped, but Kazakhmys (LSE:KAZ), Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO) and First Quantum Mining (LSE: FQM) rallied.
Copper junior, Rambler Metals & Mining (AIM & TSX: RMM) put in a second strong day, and has now doubled in the last two sessions.
Oil & Gas didn't deliver much excitement today. BP (LSE: BP.), Shell (LSE: RDSB), Cairn Energy (LSE: CNE) and Dragon Oil (LSE: DGO) all delivered small gains, while Dana Petroleum (LSE: DANA) slipped 0.8%.
Oil and Gas junior Mediterranean Oil and Gas (AIM:MOG) jumped 15% to 32 pence on bargain hunting.
Financials out of favour again
Investors continued to struggle to find any reason to snap up banks. The big five banks all fell today.
Lloyds Group (LSE: LLOY) was the worst performer, slumping 6.6%. Barclays (LSE: BARC) was not far behind, down 5%, while Standard Chartered (LSE:STAN), HSBC (LSE:HSBA) and RBS (LSE: RBS) slipped 1-2%. Other financials, including insurance groups and fund managers also came under pressure.
Standard Life (LSE:SL.) fell slightly after it announced a compensation payment to 97,000 customers who lost money when the value of the insurer’s Pension Sterling Fund was cut by nearly 5 percent in mid-January 2009. In a statement, the group said it will make an immediate cash injection into the fund with payments provided to those customers who have left Standard Life since the valuation adjustment was announced. The move will result in an additional pretax charge of approximately £100 million in the 2008 financial year.
Investment services provider Hargreaves Lansdown (LSE:HL.) slipped 1.8% after it reported a rise in pretax profit to £36.5 million in the first half from £28.7 million a year earlier and a 13 percent year-on year rise in revenue to £65.6 million. Total assets under administration fell to £9.9 billion as at December 31 2008, the end of the first half, compared with £10.3 billion at September 30 2008 and £11.1 billion at June 30.
Food producers deliver the goods
Food producers delivered good performances today. Unilever (LSE: ULVR), Diageo (LSE: DGE) and Tate & Lyle (LSE: TATE) all rallied 2-3% thanks to a positive update from Reckitt Benckiser (LSE: RB.) which soared 8.3% after releasing a bullish update.
Defensive stocks go on the offensive
Defensive equities were also in favour. Rolls-Royce (LSE: RR.), BAE Systems (LSE: BA.), Chemring (LSE: CHG) were notable climbers.
Small Caps
Small caps, as ever, were largely driven by company specific news. One of the notable gainers on the day was Sports management adviser TSE Group (AIM:TSEG), which saw its shares rocket on after it announced positive trading results – clearly the market was expecting otherwise.
RCG Holdings (AIM: RCG), a biometrics company, climbed 27% despite stating that it knew of no reason for the sudden increase in its share price. RCG Holding did hint that a recent secondary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange may be the reason for the sudden demand.