London open: Few hiding places as equities dive

18th May 2012 08:32

Miners and banks are under the cosh in early trading on continued worries over the future of the Eurozone and as the credit agencies weigh in with more ratings cuts.Ratings agency Fitch cut Greece's rating on Thursday to 'CCC' from 'B-' in order to reflect the heightened risk that the country may not be able to sustain its membership in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Fitch added that should the new election scheduled for June 17th fail to produce a government that is committed to the EU/IMF bailout agreement then Greece's exit from the Eurozone would be "probable".Meanwhile, as expected, rival debt ratings agency Moody's has downgraded its ratings on 16 Spanish banks plus Santander's British division, Santander UK.The agency said that "this wider review is driven by the difficult European operating environment caused by the prolonged euro area crisis, and the deteriorating creditworthiness of certain euro area sovereigns." Man the barricadesWith markets in turmoil, those investors wishing to remain long of equities are taking refuge in defensive favourites such as utilities SSE, National Grid, Severn Trent and United Utilities, and telecoms stocks BT and Vodafone.Xstrata, Polymetal International, Vedanta Resources and Rio Tinto lead the mining sector lower, while Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland are the hardest hit of the banks.Mid-tier cheerIn the mid-tier, revenue and profits at bourse operator London Stock Exchange came in ahead of expectations, with the group boasting of strong performances across all four of its business divisions.Oil and gas focused engineer Kentz says orders are growing and it expects its full year figures to come in ahead of expectations.Technical issues threw a spanner into the works resulting in production declining quarter-on-quarter in the first three months of 2012 at Heritage Oil, but that did not stop the group celebrating a successful test drilling in Kurdistan. The independent upstream exploration and production company said the Miran West-3 well in Kurdistan was successfully tested and is now being suspended pending completion as a production well.Wet, wet, wetIt might be best not to mention the UK drought to SIG, the building products distributor, which has seen sales in the group's roofing business disrupted by heavy rains this year.Meanwhile, "wet" sales have gone ex-growth in recent weeks at pubs operator Mitchells & Butlers, but fortunately food sales have picked up the slack. Like-for-like sales were up 2.7% in the 28 weeks to April 7th, with food sales up 3.4% and drink sales up 2.2%, but in the final 11 weeks of that period drink sales were down 0.8% in a year earlier.FTSE 100 - RisersSSE (SSE) 1,345.00p +0.45%National Grid (NG.) 677.00p +0.30%Severn Trent (SVT) 1,670.00p +0.24%BT Group (BT.A) 202.80p +0.15%Pearson (PSON) 1,144.00p +0.09%United Utilities Group (UU.) 628.50p +0.08%Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 268.60p +0.04%Vodafone Group (VOD) 165.95p +0.03%FTSE 100 - FallersXstrata (XTA) 920.00p -3.79%Polymetal International (POLY) 751.00p -3.35%Vedanta Resources (VED) 955.50p -2.99%Rio Tinto (RIO) 2,769.50p -2.99%Glencore International (GLEN) 344.65p -2.72%Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 468.30p -2.58%Barclays (BARC) 177.20p -2.58%Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC) 462.10p -2.49%BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,685.00p -2.35%Wolseley (WOS) 2,139.00p -2.28%FTSE 250 - RisersBerendsen (BRSN) 487.20p +3.66%Talvivaara Mining Company (TALV) 145.40p +3.56%Kentz Corporation Ltd. (KENZ) 385.80p +2.33%Wetherspoon (J.D.) (JDW) 382.90p +1.78%BH Global Ltd. USD Shares (BHGU) 11.75 +1.73%Hansteen Holdings (HSTN) 73.95p +1.65%Euromoney Institutional Investor (ERM) 728.50p +1.18%FTSE 250 - FallersHome Retail Group (HOME) 75.95p -4.47%Kenmare Resources (KMR) 40.65p -4.35%Salamander Energy (SMDR) 156.40p -3.81%Afren (AFR) 108.20p -3.65%Essar Energy (ESSR) 110.00p -3.59%Kesa Electricals (KESA) 45.08p -3.59%Ophir Energy (OPHR) 570.00p -3.39%Aquarius Platinum Ltd. (AQP) 83.10p -3.32%Dixons Retail (DXNS) 13.90p -3.20%Imagination Technologies Group (IMG) 540.50p -3.14%JH