- Footsie on track for worst weekly performance YTD- Miners fall, Randgold still hampered by Malian concerns- BT rises on pension deficit arrangementAfter a strong start, a sell-off in the mining sector dragged the Footsie into the red by lunchtime. Rising commodity prices did little to lift the mood with miners bearing the brunt of the losses.The blue chip index remains 134 points down on last Friday's close of 5,966. According to Reuters, the benchmark is on course for its worst weekly performance so far in 2012."Deteriorating confidence in the global growth outlook led to a worsening of investor sentiment this week. Investors took profit on their equity exposure, pushing all equity markets except the Nasdaq into negative territory," said Stefan Angele from Swiss & Global Asset Management.In domestic news, the Nationwide consumer confidence index declined from 47 to 44 in February. "The fall in confidence was broadly based with deteriorations seen in consumers' assessment of the current economic situation, the future outlook and their willingness to pay," said analysts at Barclays Capital. The Bank of England's (BoE) Financial Policy Committee said that - in its conclusions from the last policy meeting - it remains "concerned that capital was not yet at levels that would ensure resilience in the face of prospective risks and noted that the ability to make further progress via greater restraint of cash distributions was limited. It therefore advised banks to raise external capital as early as feasible."Meanwhile in Europe, economists are starting to speculate whether the recent mass inflow of money provided by the European Central Bank (ECB) is starting to wear off. Ex-ECB member Jürgen Stark warned that the monetary authority's LTROs could lead to higher inflation in the medium term as it couldn't possibly be quickly absorbed by the system. MINERS DROP WHILE BT SURGESMiners continue to be weighed down by yesterday's gloomy manufacturing data from China which fuelled demand concerns from the world's second-largest economy. Angele said today that, with house prices continuing to fall, the risk of a hard-landing for the Chinese economy is increasing. "The key question remains whether the downward dynamics will be stopped by accommodative monetary policy action or not," he said.Randgold Resources continues to be plagued by disruption concerns in Mali. Yesterday, shares sank as much as 15% on the back of reports of a military coup in Mali, the country where some of its main projects are located. While the firm has assured that operations are still running normally, the stock was hit by a downgrade from Citigroup this morning. Sector peers Rio Tinto, Anglo American, Evraz, Xstrata and ENRC were also out of favour.Meanwhile, the big news of the day was surrounding telecoms group BT, which jumped 5% after announcing plans to eliminate its pension deficit within 10 years. BT said it would make a lump sum payment of £2bn into its pension scheme to nearly halve the £4.1bn deficit. This would then be followed by nine separate payments of £325m every March until 2021. US investment bank Jefferies said this morning that the agreement gives BT scope to raise its dividend, something that "has been a longstanding driver of our positive view on BT. Incremental positive is that upgrades may now be communicated in May, six months earlier than expected."Next was performing well following the release of its full-year results yesterday. Nomura raised its target price on the stock this morning, saying that it continues to view the shares as a "core holding in the sector".Financials meanwhile were mixed with banking peers Lloyds and Barclays making slight gains. Lloyds announced yesterday that its sale of 632 branches to the Co-op is proving trickier than first thought, due to the "complex" nature of the deal. Meanwhile, HSBC was in the red after announcing the sale of a large stake in its Middle East private equity arm HPEME.On the FTSE 250, Phoenix Group, the insurance consolidation company which has attracted the interest of private equity, was in demand after cash generation beat its own targets in 2011. However, net income declined to £6,490m from £7,543m in 2010, while profit before finance costs and tax dipped to £247m from £280m the year before.BCFTSE 100 - RisersBT Group (BT.A) 230.60p +4.72%Next (NXT) 2,990.00p +2.61%Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 306.90p +1.76%Ashmore Group (ASHM) 371.40p +1.61%Kingfisher (KGF) 311.80p +1.43%ITV (ITV) 88.00p +1.38%Whitbread (WTB) 1,770.00p +1.26%Smiths Group (SMIN) 1,028.00p +1.18%Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 253.80p +1.12%International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (IAG) 181.20p +1.06%FTSE 100 - FallersRandgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 5,460.00p -5.29%Evraz (EVR) 383.30p -1.44%Anglo American (AAL) 2,409.50p -1.33%Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,289.50p -1.33%Aviva (AV.) 344.10p -1.23%Wolseley (WOS) 2,477.00p -1.08%SABMiller (SAB) 2,532.50p -1.05%Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,528.00p -1.04%Intertek Group (ITRK) 2,500.00p -1.03%BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,881.50p -1.03%FTSE 250 - RisersEssar Energy (ESSR) 150.20p +6.52%Ruspetro (RPO) 190.40p +4.21%Dixons Retail (DXNS) 19.55p +3.71%Northgate (NTG) 220.90p +3.22%Kenmare Resources (KMR) 46.00p +3.14%Phoenix Group Holdings (DI) (PHNX) 565.50p +2.82%Regus (RGU) 117.70p +2.79%Aquarius Platinum Ltd. (AQP) 152.60p +2.42%Drax Group (DRX) 530.50p +2.22%easyJet (EZJ) 464.20p +2.18%FTSE 250 - FallersExillon Energy (EXI) 175.90p -3.56%Gem Diamonds Ltd. (DI) (GEMD) 292.90p -3.52%Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CW.) 36.66p -3.48%Heritage Oil (HOIL) 146.00p -3.31%Ophir Energy (OPHR) 404.10p -3.09%Hochschild Mining (HOC) 455.20p -2.11%Logica (LOG) 95.45p -2.10%London & Stamford Property Ltd. (LSP) 111.20p -2.03%Ferrexpo (FXPO) 296.50p -2.02%African Barrick Gold (ABG) 391.60p -1.93%
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