Sector movers: Natural resources stocks weigh

15th May 2015 11:43

London-listed natural resources related stocks took another knock on Friday, as the Chinese economy continued to send mixed signals, Greece weighed on sentiment, and oversupply in the oil markets returned to hound trading.At 15:00 BST, the FTSE 100 was marginally in the red by 0.27% or 18.53 points at 6954.51 with miners weighing negatively on the blue chip index following mixed signals from China, as the country's economic data continues to disappoint and business investment down to 15 year lows.Anglo American (down 3.42%), Fresnillo (down 3.15%), Glencore (down 2.36%) and Antofagasta (down 1.89%) made up four of the five biggest blue chips stocks to take an intraday trading hit.Evraz (down 5.67%) and Polymetal International (down 2.69%) joined their ranks in the wider market as the dip in base metals prices continued.Zinc (down 1%), tin (0.8%), nickel (down 2%), lead (down 1.2%) and copper (broadly flat), marked a downbeat overnight close on the London Metal Exchange on Chinese macroeconomic data.Meanwhile, oil stocks followed miners in to the red after the International Energy Agency observed that a dip in US shale production was being compensated for by a rise in oil production elsewhere, with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates (UAE) ramping up their output to the highest level since 1985.Blue chips BP (down 1.20%) and Shell ('A' shares down 1.41%/ 'B' shares down 1.1%) took a knock, with Gulfsands Petroleum (down 11.09%), Xcite (down 6.47%), Premier Oil (down 4.7%), Tullow Oil (down 2.93%), Genel Energy (down 2.78%) and Bowleven (down 2.36%) among other notable stocks to take a hit over a troubling session for the sector.The biggest faller was small-cap Caza Oil & Gas which shed 13.51% on a poor set of results. Caza said revenues from oil and natural gas sales for the three months to 31 March, plunged 27% year-on-year to $3.37m (£2.14m) and 30% from the previous quarter, due to lower oil and natural gas prices.Elsewhere, Canaccord Genuity downgraded energy services outfit Wood Group (down 2.11%) from 'hold' to 'sell' and cut its target price from 650p to 625p following recent strong gain in the shares.Worst five sectorsIndustrial Metals & Mining 1,924.44 -107.35 -5.28% Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 18,627.10 -345.27 -1.82% Mining 14,312.98 -237.54 -1.63% Oil & Gas Producers 7,285.03 -108.07 -1.46%Food & Drug Retailers 3,161.45 -26.62 -0.84%Top five sectorsTravel & Leisure 8,899.02 +95.81 +1.09% Real Estate Investment Trusts 3,436.14 +35.87 +1.05% Non-life Insurance 2,103.06 +21.23 +1.02% Real Estate Investment & Services 3,174.36 +28.81 +0.92% Financial Services 9,881.06 +85.45 +0.87%