LONDON MARKET CLOSE: Miners Rally But FTSE 100 Still Ends Below 6,000

LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks in the UK closed lower Tuesday, dragging the FTSE 100 index further below the 6,000 mark, despite a rebound in resource stocks.

The FTSE 100 closed down 0.8% at 5,909.24, its second consecutive close below the 6,000-point mark, the first time this has happened since the tail-end of 2012. The FTSE 250 index ended down 1.0% at 16,442.49 points, and the AIM All-Share closed down 0.9% at 720.44.

European stocks performed slightly better, with the French CAC 40 index closing up 0.3% and the German DAX 30 index closing down 0.4%.

In the US at the London close, the Dow 30 traded up 0.2%, the S&P 500 up 0.4% and the Nasdaq Composite up 0.5%.

The gains in New York came after traders reacted positively to a report from the Conference Board showing an unexpected improvement in US consumer confidence in the month of September. The report said the Conference Board's consumer confidence index climbed to 103.0 in September from 101.3 in August. Economists had expected the index to pull back to 96.0.

In London, Glencore was by far the biggest gainer in the FTSE 100 on Tuesday, ending up 17%. The multi-commodities miner and trading house recovered some of its 29% fall on Monday, when broker Investec published a note suggesting it and rival Anglo American could see the equity value all but "evaporate" should commodity prices remain low and if the pair fail to undertake substantial restructuring work.

Anglo American was unable to join the rebound and closed down 1.7%.

"For now, it seems that the rush for the exit has stopped in Glencore, but it is too early to say that a bottom has been reached, especially with the week's China data still to come," said Chris Beauchamp, senior market analyst at IG.

Other resource stocks also were rebounding from Monday's losses, with Antofagasta up 2.2%, Royal Dutch Shell 'B' shares up 1.9% and BP up 1.0%. Shell had been hit on Monday after it said it has plugged and abandoned the Burger J exploration well in the Chukchi Sea in Alaska and will stop further exploration activity in the Alaska region for the foreseeable future.

Wolseley was the biggest blue-chip decliner, ending down 13%. The building materials company warned of sluggish industrial markets in the UK and predicted its like-for-like revenue growth will slow in 2016 which offset higher trading profit for the year to the end of July and the launch of a GBP300.0 million share buyback.

The company said it expects like-for-like growth in the first half of the current financial year to slow to 4.0%, having posted 7.1% growth for the year to the end of July. That was accompanied by a warning that industrial revenue in North America, which accounts for around 15% of its revenue from the region, slowed in the fourth quarter and Wolseley expects that trend to continue.

The warning on Wolseley's outlook came in combination with pretax profit falling in its 2015 financial year to GBP508.0 million, compared to GBP676.0 million a year earlier, due to it booking GBP242.0 million in exceptional charges in the year, mostly related to a GBP234.0 million write-down on its business in the Nordic region, which had been noted previously.

In the FTSE 250, Tullow Oil closed as the best performer up 5.7%. Cantor Fitzgerald and Macquarie Research upgraded the oil and gas company to Hold and Outperform, respectively, as both brokers said they now see the stock fairly valued.

Wizz Air Holdings closed up 2.5% after it said it now expects to post a higher net profit in its full financial year following a strong first half, although it warned that air fares will continue to fall due to lower fuel prices.

The low-cost airline said that it traded well in the first half of its 2016 financial year and as a result will deliver operating and net profit margins ahead of the same period last year.

This, combined with robust bookings for the third quarter, mean that net profit for the full year which excludes exceptional items, should be in the range of EUR190 million and EUR200 million, up from the EUR175 million to EUR185 million it had previously forecast.

It was a busy news day for small-cap stocks in London. Alecto Minerals ended up 39%. The miner said it has completed an internal scoping study on an enlarged project following on from its joint venture agreement with Desert Gold Ventures back in March. The companies signed a co-operation agreement to jointly develop their neighbouring gold deposits in Mali.

The internal scoping study suggested there are "significant cost savings" to be made by jointly developing the two projects.

Media technology company Mirada issued a profit warning as it said it will take a hit in its current financial year from the deferral of licence fee revenues.

The company said it has been working on the roll-out of its Iris multi-screen product for Cablevisión Monterrey in Mexico, which started in February 2015. The initial deployment was the smallest of the roll-outs, and the company is now working on the next two networks in the roll-out, which are bigger than the first.

Having previously anticipated that the roll-out of these networks would take place in 2015, this has now been delayed to the final quarter of Mirada's financial year to the end of March 2016. As a result, the company expects to recognise only limited licence fee revenue from the two networks in the current financial year, with this revenue to be deferred into the 2017 financial year. The company's shares closed down 27%.

Still ahead in the economic calendar, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney will be speaking at 2015 BST at the Lloyds of London insurance market.

In the economic calendar for Wednesday, there is the GfK UK consumer confidence survey at 0050 BST, alongside Japanese industrial production and retail trade data. Later in the morning are German retail sales and UK Nationwide housing prices, both at 0700 BST, UK GDP at 0930 BST and eurozone unemployment and inflation data at 1000 BST.

New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley will be speaking at 1300 BST, just before US ADP employment figures at 1315 BST, the Chicago purchasing managers' index at 1445 BST and Energy Information Administration crude oil stocks at 1530 BST. Fed Chair Janet Yellen will be speaking at 2000 BST.

In the UK corporate calendar, supermarket J Sainsbury issues a second-quarter trading statement while energy company SSE provides a financial outlook statement. FTSE 250-listed provider of products and services for the over-50s market Saga reports interim results. There also are half-year results expected from AIM-listed companies Velocys, Graphene Nanochem, InternetQ, Zanaga Iron Ore and ServicePower Technologies.

By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com; @NeilThakrar1

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