LONDON (Alliance News) - UK equities had a choppy open Tuesday, but traded higher, shrugging off losses from oil and mining stocks which caught up with declines made by their European peers on Monday following a sharp fall in oil price and weak Chinese data.
European and US stock indices fell on Monday while London was on holiday, tracking the losses in oil prices. Brent oil fell to a low of USD36.39 a barrel on Monday and just after the open Tuesday traded at USD36.80. At the end of London's last trading session last Thursday, Brent was quoted at USD37.55 a barrel.
US benchmark West Texas Intermediate hit a low of USD36.58 a barrel on Monday and traded at USD36.95 a barrel early Tuesday.
Mining and energy stocks were amongst the decliners in Europe on Monday as data on Sunday showed profits earned by Chinese industrial companies fell for the sixth straight month in November.
On Tuesday, energy and miners were weighing on the London stock market. Anglo American was the worst blue-chip performer, down 4.5%, Glencore traded down 1.8%, and BP was down 1.7%.
The FTSE 100 index was up 0.2% at 6,267.82 points, the FTSE 250 up 0.2% at 17,444.24 and the AIM All-Share up 0.1% at 728.59.
European stocks were bouncing back from their losses on Monday. The CAC 40 in Paris traded up 0.9% and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was up 0.9% as well.
In Asia, the Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.6%, the Shanghai Composite ended up 0.8%, and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong finished up 0.4%.
ZinCoz Resources was the worst performer in the London market, down 47% after the company said it will start cutting costs and jobs across the business in order to shore up its financial position after it failed to raise the funds required under its agreement with Korea Zinc.
The company struck a deal with Korea Zinc in November to reschedule the USD57.1 million in debt ZincOx owes to Korea Zinc, but this was dependent on ZincOx raising USD5.0 million by the end of 2015.
Despite "intensive efforts" ZincOx said had been made in recent weeks to raise the funds before the end of the year, it has not been able to secure a sufficient number of investors to fund this amount. Under the terms of the agreement with Korea Zinc, ZincOx is now obligated to transfer 90% of its interest in its ZincOx Korea Ltd subsidiary, the owner of its Korean recycling plant operation, to Korea Zinc.
Fellow AIM-listed company 88 Energy was the best performer in the AIM All-Share index, up 23%. The company said the Icewine 1 well in Alaska was drilled to its target depth and met all primary unconventional drilling objectives, along with robust conventional finds.
88 Energy said oil shows were recorded in the drill hole, along with good heavy gas and shale gas shows.
In addition to the unconventional finds, the company also saw robust results on the conventional oil and gas resources at the project, and a detailed petrophysical log interpretation of those results is now underway, it said.
Xtract Resources was down 9.1% after it said two employees were killed at its gold processing plant at the Chepica gold and copper mine in Chile on Thursday last week, resulting in all work at the mine stopping.
The accidents occurred after an individual being trained at the mine entered a restricted area without the necessary safety equipment for "unexplained reasons," Xtract said. The shift supervisor then attempted to rescue the trainee but was killed in the process.
It said underground mining will be allowed to resume on Tuesday, though the processing plant is expected to remain closed until January 12.
In the economic calendar, the US goods trade balance is at 1330 GMT, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices is at 1400 GMT, and US consumer confidence is at 1500 GMT.
By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com; @NeilThakrar1
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