London open: Miners offset positive company news

15th Jul 2010 08:20

London's blue chips have opened lower as weak miners overshadow a number of positive company statements.Kazakhmys is leading the fallers, closely followed by Xstrata, Eurasian Natural Resources, Antofagasta, Vedanta Resources, Lonmin and Rio Tinto.On the positive side, global information services company Experian is leading the risers after the group said it saw an improved performance across all its geographic regions except the UK & Ireland in the May to June period. Revenues grew 7% on a constant exchange rate basis while organic revenue growth was 6%.A cloud over drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline has been lifted. A joint advisory committee to the US Food and Drug Administration has voted to allow Glaxo's lucrative diabetes drug Avandia to remain on the market. In a separate statement today, Glaxo also revealed that it expects to record a legal charge for the second quarter of 2010 of £1.57bn.Tullow Oil is up on news that it has found oil at its Nsoga-5 appraisal well, which is located in the Butiaba region of Uganda Block 2. The group said the well has successfully encountered 10 metres of net oil pay after it was drilled to a total depth of 587 metres.Premier Oil has reported a rise in average production in the first six months of the year and said it has increasing visibility on longer-term production growth.Mother and baby products retailer Mothercare reported a 4.1% decline in first quarter UK like for like sales while international sales soared 20.3%. Overall group sales were up 0.4% during the 15 weeks ended 10 July.Information management specialist SDL has purchased automated translation firm Language Weaver. SDL is paying $42.5m (£28.2m) in cash for the US firm.Distributor Electrocomponents said it has seen significantly increased levels of customer activity as it reported a 24% jump in first-quarter revenues.Oil explorer JKX Oil & Gas said results from the second well test in the Koshekhablskoye Field, Russia, "far" exceeded expectations.Oil and gas company Afren has increased its interest in the OML 115 licence, off the coast of south east Nigeria, from 32.5% to 40% through a deal with Energy Equity Resources (EER).Fashion retailer SuperGroup said the new financial has year started well and is in line with company expectations as it quadrupled full year pre-tax profit. Soco said it has agreed to farm-out a 20% interest in the Nganzi Block, onshore the Democratic Republic of Congo to Inpex Corporation (Inpex). Abcam, which markets antibodies via its own online catalogue, said profit before tax will be around 9% higher than expectations as sales rose on the back of a weaker pound.FTSE 100 - RisersExperian Group (EXPN) 644.50p +1.74%Tullow Oil (TLW) 1,143.00p +0.70%GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,189.00p +0.63%British American Tobacco (BATS) 2,278.50p +0.53%Diageo (DGE) 1,123.00p +0.45%Essar Energy (ESSR) 430.90p +0.44%Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CW.) 87.80p +0.40%Prudential (PRU) 546.00p +0.37%Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 1,944.00p +0.36%Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 348.90p +0.26%FTSE 100 - FallersKazakhmys (KAZ) 1,045.00p -2.43%Xstrata (XTA) 923.30p -2.04%Eurasian Natural Resources (ENRC) 856.50p -1.89%Aggreko (AGK) 1,580.00p -1.86%Antofagasta (ANTO) 896.00p -1.86%Vedanta Resources (VED) 2,237.00p -1.76%Lonmin (LMI) 1,441.00p -1.71%BT Group (BT.A) 139.90p -1.69%Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,084.00p -1.61%BP (BP.) 394.85p -1.53%