London open: Dull start to week

14th Sep 2009 08:47

Footsie has dipped below 5,000 this morning with miners running into profit taking on talk that the recent metal price rally has run too far.Johnson Matthey, ENRC and Kazakhmys are the worst performers. Reports over the weekend suggested some commentators are concerned by the amount of speculative money that is flowing into the sector.Rio is also lower though the Brazilian National Defence Council has approved the sale of Rio Tinto's Corumbá iron ore mine in Brazil to Vale for $750m. Ferrochrome producer International Ferrochrome slid into a second half net deficit of R341m as a slump in demand and prices prompted severe production cutbacks. The cut back in production caused sales to fall from 207,862 tonnes last year to 101,835 tonnes this year, with a consequential deterioration in economies of scale, the firm said.Elsewhere, Cadbury leads the risers on its strong words against the attempted takeover by US firm Kraft. Rumours of either a higher bid or interest from Hershey continues to support the shares.Insurers are going well after Resolution told the Times it could buy a general insurer as well as a life group. Admiral is up in sympathy.The decision to allow product placement in TV programmes has given ITV a boost, with the Telegaph suggesting it could be worth millions to the firm.Kentz has had a 'strong' first half during which profit jumped 10% to more than $1bn as the engineering group focused on oil and gas, petrochemicals and energy in developing regions. Profit before tax for the six months ending 30 June 2009 rose to $18.5m from $16.8m a year earlier on revenue little changed at $328.9m.Construction and regeneration group Morgan Sindall has won a £38m private/public partnership (PPP) scheme contract to build Basildon Sporting Village, a state of the art leisure complex. Energy meter provider Bglobal has won a contract to provide the UK retail arm of Russian energy company Gazprom with smart metering services.