London midday: Retail boost but miners suffer

Retail stocks are on the offensive today, but with the Eurozone situation continuing to stoke fears over global growth, miners are dragging the top share index lower.Franco-German talks regarding the Eurozone rescue fund are not going on as smoothly as some had hoped.The unexpected meeting yesterday, between French President Nicholas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, seems not to have borne any fruit as regards efforts to improve the efficacy of the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF). In fact, according to newswires the French premier and his German counterpart now seem at odds over how to continue forward, although contacts and consultations are expected to be ongoing until this weekend´s summit.MINERS SPOIL THE PARTY AS RETAILERS JUMPCopper fell as did while gold and silver, lessening the appeal of miners. Kazakhmys, Xstrata and Eurasian Natural Resources Corp lost at least 3% of their value.Anglo American fell despite seeing a 3% year-on-year increase in iron ore production in the third quarter of 2011.However, FTSE 250 gold miner Petropavlovsk bucked the sector trend to rise strongly after reporting that total gold production rose by 65% in the third quarter.Mining peer African Barrick Gold didn't fare as well, falling into the red despite seeing a 61% increase in third quarter revenue.A big mover was Pace, the Yorkshire-based maker of set top boxes, which tumbled over 16% after saying that it could see $9.5m knocked off its operating profit this year because of floods in Thailand which have affected factory operations.Department store Debenhams jumped after sales and profits came in ahead of market expectations for the full year to the end of September. An unexpected rise in retail sales in September has also boosted the sector, helping big names such as M&S and fellow clothes retailer Next post big gains.Britvic has risen strongly after saying that revenues grew by 14.6% in the year ending 2 October, helped by the first 12-month contribution from its French division.Transport groups Go-Ahead, National Express and Stagecoach dropped early on after being beaten by Abellio, the international arm of Dutch Railways, which has won the Greater Anglia rail franchise.Among smaller companies, mainland Europe newspaper publisher Mecom falls after saying it now expects earnings for the second half to be lower than those same period the previous year after it suffered a 3% fall in advertising revenues in the third quarter as the euro crisis continued to hurt consumer confidence.Trading in the year to 30 September has been better than expected, the construction consultancy Driver said, sending its shares higher. Turnover was in line with expectations and stronger margins resulted in underlying profit before tax that was "slightly" ahead of management's expectations, the company said. FTSE 100 - RisersNext (NXT) 2,620.00p +3.15%G4S (GFS) 240.50p +2.95%Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 336.70p +2.37%Kingfisher (KGF) 261.30p +2.07%British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSY) 724.00p +1.97%ARM Holdings (ARM) 587.50p +1.21%Wolseley (WOS) 1,795.00p +1.13%Sage Group (SGE) 278.30p +1.05%Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 3,336.00p +1.00%Vodafone Group (VOD) 175.15p +0.92%FTSE 100 - FallersFresnillo (FRES) 1,506.00p -3.15%Hammerson (HMSO) 395.00p -2.49%Prudential (PRU) 615.50p -2.46%Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,064.50p -2.34%Land Securities Group (LAND) 663.50p -2.14%BP (BP.) 427.65p -2.13%Kazakhmys (KAZ) 856.50p -2.06%IMI (IMI) 785.00p -2.00%Standard Life (SL.) 210.00p -1.96%Anglo American (AAL) 2,227.50p -1.92%FTSE 250 - RisersDebenhams (DEB) 67.75p +7.97%Drax Group (DRX) 514.00p +7.13%Petropavlovsk (POG) 720.00p +6.67%Home Retail Group (HOME) 105.90p +6.43%Britvic (BVIC) 328.00p +6.39%William Hill (WMH) 224.00p +3.04%COLT Group SA (COLT) 93.65p +2.29%Telecity Group (TCY) 595.00p +2.23%Anglo Pacific Group (APF) 265.50p +2.23%UBM (UBM) 498.10p +1.97%FTSE 250 - FallersPace (PIC) 81.65p -11.25%Mondi (MNDI) 455.50p -5.60%Premier Foods (PFD) 4.07p -4.82%Go-Ahead Group (GOG) 1,406.00p -4.35%Centamin Egypt Ltd. (CEY) 103.00p -4.19%Big Yellow Group (BYG) 257.50p -4.13%Perform Group (PER) 202.00p -3.81%African Barrick Gold (ABG) 546.50p -3.10%Phoenix Group Holdings (DI) (PHNX) 501.50p -3.00%Ashtead Group (AHT) 155.20p -2.88%