London open: EFSF worries weigh on Footsie

Just eight of the 100 stocks on the Footsie were making gains on Wednesday morning, following the news that the Slovakia failed to agree on the extension of the Eurozone rescue fund.SLOVAKIAN HEADACHELate Tuesday night, just 55 of the 150 MPs in Slovakia's parliament voted in favour of expanding the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF), the €440bn fund which will provide financial support to struggling Eurozone nations."Extending the EFSF is mainly for saving foreign banks, and it will be expensive for Slovakia," said Richard Sulik, the leader of the Freedom and Solidarity party. "I'd rather be a pariah in Brussels than have to feel ashamed before my children, who would be deeper in debt should I back raising the volume of funding in the EFSF bail-out mechanism," he added.Because Slovakia is a member of the club of 17 countries which use the euro in theory its refusal to participate in the EFSF could mean the whole enterprise collapses. Nevertheless, the government's finance minister Ivan Miklos said, "There is an assumption that, one way or another, the EFSF will be approved by the end of the week."Meanwhile, there are reports that the European Banking Authority could impose a minimum capital buffer of 10% on the region's banks to make sure they can deal with sovereign debt write-downs. According to this morning's Times, banks could need to raise between €100bn and €275bn. The banks fell lower in early trade on the Footsie, with Lloyds, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland in the red. The Times said that RBS - which currently has a core tier 1 ratio of 8% - may need to ask the government for help.FRESNILLO LEADS FALLERS AFTER PRODUCTION DISAPPOINTMENTIn London, Fresnillo dropped almost 5% in the opening minutes after cutting its full-year silver production target. Due to two fatalities in July, the gold and silver miner was forced to tighten safety conditions at the Fresnillo mine, causing a temporary slowdown in operations.Fellow miner BHP Billiton was also lower after giving the green light for US$1.2bn to be invested in the first phase of the Olympic Dam Project to develop an open pit mine in South Australia.British luxury brand Burberry was also out of favour after revealing a slowdown in growth in the second quarter. Also, while wholesale revenues rose by 9% in the first half, the firm said it expects growth to fall to a mid single-digit percentage.WPP, the FTSE 100 advertising firm, slipped as it agreed to take a majority stake in the Chinese digital agency A4A.UK defence contractor BAE Systems reiterated that earnings for 2011 will be broadly in line with those of 2010. However, shares took a hit early on.BCFTSE 100 - RisersRandgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 6,495.00p +1.33%InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 1,084.00p +0.65%Intertek Group (ITRK) 1,881.00p +0.48%Tate & Lyle (TATE) 628.00p +0.32%Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 2,169.00p +0.18%G4S (GFS) 275.90p +0.15%Serco Group (SRP) 505.50p +0.10%Ashmore Group (ASHM) 321.00p +0.06%FTSE 100 - FallersFresnillo (FRES) 1,617.00p -4.83%Man Group (EMG) 160.00p -3.73%Cairn Energy (CNE) 286.60p -2.42%Old Mutual (OML) 107.80p -2.36%Wolseley (WOS) 1,682.00p -2.32%Tullow Oil (TLW) 1,368.00p -2.08%Capital Shopping Centres Group (CSCG) 333.40p -1.77%International Power (IPR) 326.90p -1.54%Experian (EXPN) 729.50p -1.42%Tesco (TSCO) 401.50p -1.35%