LONDON MARKET OPEN: Miners Struggle Amid Ongoing US-China Trade Woes

(Alliance News) - Stocks in London added to Friday's losses early on Monday as trade tensions between the US and China harmed miners, dragging the FTSE 100 lower. The large-cap index was down 83.17 points, or 1.1%, at 7,323.15 early Monday. The mid-cap FTSE 250 index was down 221.14 points, or 1.2%, at 19,032.03, while the AIM All-Share was down 0.8% at 913.93.On Friday, The FTSE 100 index closed 2.3% lower, putting the blue chip index 1.7% lower for the week. The mid-cap FTSE 250 index ended Friday down 1.9% while the AIM All-Share was 1.1% lower.The Cboe UK 100 index was down 1.1% at 12,407.75 on Monday. The Cboe UK 250 was down 1.3% at 16,978.60, while the Cboe UK Small Companies was 0.1% higher at 11,034.84."Global stock markets had a shocker last week, posting their biggest declines in several weeks, after President Trump threw everyone a curve ball just as US, China trade talks had restarted," said CMC Market's Michael Hewson.Hewson continued: "As we head into a new week, and a disappointing start to August, the big question is whether last week's sell-off is a one-off and a buying opportunity, or the start of a much bigger decline."Judging by the ferocity of the last two-day's sell-off and today's further declines in Asia, there is a sense that it might be the latter which means we look set to see some further August angst for investors, starting with today's session in Asia, which has seen further heavy falls and is set to see European markets open sharply lower this morning."In Asia on Monday, the Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed down 1.7%. In China, the Shanghai Composite closed down 1.6%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was 2.8% lower.Sterling was quoted at USD1.2108 early Monday, down from USD1.2122 at the London equities close on Friday.As the US-China trade war shows no signs of coming to an end, large-cap miners struggled in early trade in London. Antofagasta, Rio Tinto, BHP Group and Anglo American were among the worst performers, shedding 4.4%, 3.5%, 2.5% and 2.0%, respectively.The Chinese yuan fell to its lowest level against the dollar since August 2010 in morning trade on Monday. This fuelled speculation that Beijing is allowing currency depreciation to counter threatened US tariffs.Gold was quoted at USD1,456.80 an ounce at the London equities close, higher against USD1,445.50 late Friday. Brent oil was quoted at USD60.97 a barrel at the London equities close, down from USD62.05 late Friday. The Iraqi Oil Ministry has denied Iranian reports that an oil tanker seized by Iran in the Gulf comes from Iraq. The claim that the tanker was Iraqi was made by Iranian state news agency IRNA on Sunday evening. The tanker Hita had 700,000 litres of illegal diesel on board, IRNA said. The fuel had been confiscated, an earlier report from Fars news agency said.The Iraqi Oil Ministry denied any link to the tanker, stressing that the vessel is one of the small tankers that the ministry does not deal with.On the London Stock Exchange, Ocado and Marks & Spencer were 4.4% and 2.9% lower, respectively. Ocado announced it has completed the 50% sale of Ocado Retail to Marks & Spencer. In February, the pair agreed to a 50-50 joint venture, whereby Ocado UK grocery retail business will sell M&S products. Following the completion of the deal, Ocado Retail will start selling M&S products in September next year. M&S Strategy Director Melanie Smith has been appointed CEO of Ocado Retail as part of the deal. Shares in HSBC Holdings were down 0.8% early Monday. HSBC Chief Executive Officer John Flint is stepping down from his role, as the lender reported "strong momentum" in the first half. Europe's largest bank said Flint will be replaced by Global Commercial Banking CEO Noel Quinn on an interim basis. HSBC said Flint was stepping down "by mutual agreement" and is "not carrying out his day-to-day duties after today", though he remains available to assist the transition.Among midcaps, BBA Aviation was down 3.4% in early trade. The aviations services provider reported a sharp rise in profit in the first half but attributed the growth to switching accounting methods. In the six months to June 30, BBA saw pretax profit rise 22% to USD156.0 million from USD128.2 million the year before.Revenue increased 20% to USD1.53 billion from USD1.28 billion the year before."The first half of 2019 has been broadly in line with our expectations for BBA Aviation, with a solid Signature performance, in a flat B&GA market. Our Ontic legacy business has delivered a strong performance," said BBA CEO Mark Johnstone.Last week, BBA Aviation said it agreed to sell its aerospace parts and services unit Ontic to CVC Fund Vll, managed by private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, for an enterprise value of USD1.37 billion. It expects to return between USD750 million and USD850 million of that to shareholders. In Paris, the CAC 40 stock index was down 0.9% while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was 0.7% lower in early trade. The euro was quoted at USD1.1116 early Monday, higher from USD1.1112 at the European equities close Friday.Still to come on Monday, the economic events calendar has a slew of services PMIs, with the eurozone at 0900 BST, UK at 0930 BST and the US at 1445 BST.