London open: Miners drag Footsie lower

20th Oct 2011 08:33

The Footsie tumbled in the opening minutes on Thursday morning, following a strong day yesterday, with just three stocks making gains. Markets seem to have lost their optimism as Franco-German talks regarding the Eurozone rescue fund are not going on as smoothly as some had hoped.The unexpected meeting yesterday, between French President Nicholas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, seems not to have borne any fruit as regards efforts to improve the efficacy of the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF). In fact, according to newswires the French premier and his German counterpart now seem at odds over how to continue forward, although contacts and consultations are expected to be ongoing until this weekend´s summit.MINERS TAKE A HIT, PACE TAKES A TUMBLECopper prices were 3.39% lower while gold and silver fell 1.43% and 1.62%, respectively, causing the miners to fall out of favour. Kazakhmys, Xstrata and Eurasian Natural Resources Corp lost at least 3% of their value.Anglo American fell despite seeing a 3% year-on-year increase in iron ore production in the third quarter of 2011.However, FTSE 250 gold miner Petropavlovsk bucked the sector trend to rise strongly after reporting that total gold production rose by 65% in the third quarter.Mining peer African Barrick Gold didn't fare as well, falling into the red despite seeing a 61% increase in third quarter revenue.Oil and gas facilities provider Petrofac fell despite saying that it has continued to perform in line with expectations in the year-to-date.A big mover was Pace, the Yorkshire-based maker of set top boxes, which tumbled over 16% after saying that it could see $9.5m knocked off its operating profit this year because of floods in Thailand which have affected factory operations.Department store Debenhams rose after sales and profits came in ahead of market expectations for the full year to the end of September.Britvic has risen strongly after saying that revenues grew by 14.6% in the year ending 2 October, helped by the first 12-month contribution from its French division.Transport groups Go-Ahead, National Express and Stagecoach dropped early on after being beaten by Abellio, the international arm of Dutch Railways, which has won the Greater Anglia rail franchise.BCFTSE 100 - RisersARM Holdings (ARM) 582.00p +0.26%United Utilities Group (UU.) 613.50p +0.16%British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSY) 711.00p +0.14%FTSE 100 - FallersKazakhmys (KAZ) 842.00p -3.72%Weir Group (WEIR) 1,645.00p -3.29%IMI (IMI) 775.00p -3.25%Xstrata (XTA) 898.40p -3.03%Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC) 629.50p -3.00%Vedanta Resources (VED) 1,140.00p -2.90%Lonmin (LMI) 1,030.00p -2.83%Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,050.00p -2.80%Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,047.00p -2.70%Intertek Group (ITRK) 1,903.00p -2.66%FTSE 250 - RisersPetropavlovsk (POG) 699.50p +3.63%Oxford Instruments (OXIG) 799.50p +2.96%Premier Foods (PFD) 4.40p +2.90%Britvic (BVIC) 315.90p +2.47%Dixons Retail (DXNS) 11.40p +2.33%Filtrona PLC (FLTR) 356.40p +1.68%COLT Group SA (COLT) 93.00p +1.58%Redrow (RDW) 120.20p +1.01%Debenhams (DEB) 63.35p +0.96%Grainger (GRI) 87.95p +0.92%FTSE 250 - FallersPace (PIC) 77.00p -16.30%Mondi (MNDI) 457.60p -5.16%Go-Ahead Group (GOG) 1,403.00p -4.56%Ashtead Group (AHT) 153.60p -3.88%Templeton Emerging Markets Inv Trust (TEM) 530.50p -3.81%Morgan Crucible Co (MGCR) 255.30p -3.62%Melrose (MRO) 313.80p -3.30%Computacenter (CCC) 361.40p -3.16%Heritage Oil (HOIL) 223.40p -3.00%Hays (HAS) 72.60p -2.88%