London midday: Miners pull blue chips lower

27th Jan 2010 12:02

Footsie is trying to rally after an early sell-off on fears that China is planning fiscal measures to cool growth.Mining stocks once again feature prominently among the laggards, with Xstrata, Fresnillo and Anglo American the worst hit. Mining giant Vedanta Resources is also lower despite seeing core earnings soar in the last quarter thanks to higher volumes and recovering commodity prices.Tullow Oil is the worst performing blue-chip. The oil company wants to raise almost £1bn to fund its exploration and production activities a day after shareholders rubber-stamped its purchase of Heritage Oil's 50% stake in Blocks 1 and 3A in Uganda. It is placing 80.43m shares with institutional investors at an as yet undisclosed price.Hedge fund group Man is also sharply lower after Credit Suisse cut its price target for the stock from 320p to 300p. Elsewhere in the financial sector, the banks have been hit by an IMF report that the whole global bank sector needs to raise many billions more to shore up its finances. Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays lead the sector lower, not helped by a report that veteran banker and former Lloyds TSB chairman and bank legend Sir Brian Pitman is set to become chairman of Richard Branson's finance arm, Virgin Money, has also unsettled the two UK banks.Platinum specialist Johnson Matthey had some good news. It expects results this year to come in slightly better than market estimates as recovery comes through in a number of markets. Group sales excluding precious metals for the third quarter were 9% ahead of the same period last year.International Power has completed the financing for Thai National Power 2 (TNP2), a new 110 megawatt (MW) gas-fired cogeneration project in Thailand.While the FTSE 100 leaderboard is a sea of red, there are a few bright spots to be found among FTSE 250 stocks such as Britvic, Renishaw, Greene King and WH Smith.Soft drinks firm Britvic has seen 'robust' market conditions in the last quarter, but said it remains cautious about the outlook for consumer confidence and spending. The group also said that adverse weather conditions in the early weeks of January have resulted in a marked slowing of demand, while sales pressure in Ireland is continuing.Newsagent chain WH Smith reported a drop in sales, but said it remains confident in the outcome for the full year. Total group sales were down 2% with like for like (LFL) sales down 4% for the 21 weeks to 23 January. LFL sales in the High Street division fell by 5% and 4% in the 11 and 21 weeks respectively.Brewer Greene King's trading over the last nine weeks has remained 'relatively strong' despite the freezing weather, with food sales going well and Scottish arm Belhaven again doing a star turn.A near-doubling of orders over the past six months put some gloss on a sharp fall in interim profits at high-tech precision tool maker Renishaw. The order book increased from £9.7m in June to £17.6m by end December with orders exceeding revenue in the each of the past six months, the group said.Stockbroker Charles Stanley said third quarter revenue rose 5.2% from the same period a year earlier after seeing a solid performance in all three of its divisions. For the three months to 31 December 2009 revenue rose to £28.4m from £27.0m the same quarter a year earlier.Shares in System C Healthcare perked up after it reported a 49% increase in first half pre-tax profit and said it expects full year profit to be in line with market forecasts.Plant Health Care expects to report a significantly reduced full year loss for 2009,but the natural plant supplement supplier said at least one third of sales previously expected to fall in 2010 are now likely to fall in to the following year.