London open: Spanish downgrade weighs on sentiment

- S and P downgrades Spain- UK consumer confidence misses estimates- Banks, miners lead the downside in LondonThe FTSE 100 opened cautiously on Friday morning looking like it could snap a three-day winning streak, with banking and mining blue chips providing a drag on the back of concerns over the Eurozone economy.Standard and Poor's has downgraded Spain on concerns over its debt and financial institutions and holds a negative outlook. The agency has decided to lower the long- and short-term sovereign credit ratings on Spain from A to BBB+.The credit ratings agency now feels that the country's budget trajectory will likely deteriorate against a background of economic contraction and considers that its government will probably need to provide further support to the banking sector. Meanwhile domestic news, the GfK UK consumer confidence index for the month of April has come in at -31 points, unchanged on the previous month. The consensus estimate was for a slight improvement to -30. FTSE 100: Banks, miners weigh on blue-chip indexBanking giants Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays were among the worst performers on the Footsie in the opening hour. Barclays saw shares fall ahead of its annual general meeting today in which it is expected to face a shareholder revolt against levels of remuneration, especially for its Chief Executive Bob Diamond.Meanwhile, mining peers Vedanta, Kazakhmys, Rio Tinto, Fresnillo and ENRC were also heavy fallers tracking metals prices lower.Leading the upside was building group CRH after JP Morgan Cazenove upgraded the stock from underweight to overweight. Meanwhile telecoms giant BT was out of favour despite an upgrade from Goldman Sachs from buy to conviction buy.Publishing giant Pearson edged higher after saying it continues to expect growth in sales and operating profits this year, having traded in line with expectations in the first quarter.Media giant WPP also rose after saying that it is reviewing its full-year forecasts after an impressive start to 2012 with like-for-like revenue growth coming in ahead of expectations in the first quarter. FTSE 250: AZ Electronic Materials and Salamander provide a dragSpeciality chemicals producer AZ Electronic Materials fell after saying that group revenue was 4% lower in the first quarter after the challenging trading conditions experienced towards the end of 2011 continued, as expected.Salamander Energy, the independent upstream oil and gas exploration and production business focused on South-East Asia, fell after announcing that it is looking to raise around $201m through an underwritten rights issue to accelerate its drilling programme. Investec downgraded the stock from buy to hold this morning.Business communications group Colt was a high riser after revenue rose 5.2% in the first quarter with the company experiencing growth across all major product categories.FTSE 100 - RisersCRH (CRH) 1,250.00p +2.46%Man Group (EMG) 95.65p +2.03%Evraz (EVR) 370.10p +1.65%British Land Co (BLND) 490.20p +1.43%ICAP (IAP) 373.70p +1.27%Wolseley (WOS) 2,383.00p +1.10%Serco Group (SRP) 549.50p +1.10%InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 1,476.00p +1.10%ITV (ITV) 86.65p +1.05%Amec (AMEC) 1,131.00p +0.89%FTSE 100 - FallersBT Group (BT.A) 213.40p -1.25%Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 31.16p -0.98%Shire Plc (SHP) 2,020.00p -0.98%Standard Chartered (STAN) 1,504.50p -0.86%Kingfisher (KGF) 290.40p -0.79%Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 2,178.50p -0.77%Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 23.41p -0.72%Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 2,252.00p -0.64%BP (BP.) 441.60p -0.60%Legal & General Group (LGEN) 118.30p -0.59%FTSE 250 - RisersCSR (CSR) 222.70p +5.75%JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 806.00p +4.00%Ferrexpo (FXPO) 298.50p +3.43%COLT Group SA (COLT) 107.40p +3.27%William Hill (WMH) 287.20p +2.17%New World Resources A Shares (NWR) 414.10p +1.94%Petropavlovsk (POG) 479.20p +1.83%Micro Focus International (MCRO) 468.30p +1.72%Big Yellow Group (BYG) 295.80p +1.72%Savills (SVS) 348.50p +1.46%FTSE 250 - FallersSalamander Energy (SMDR) 249.00p -2.77%AZ Electronic Materials SA (DI) (AZEM) 309.20p -2.71%Kesa Electricals (KESA) 55.20p -2.39%Phoenix Group Holdings (DI) (PHNX) 514.50p -2.00%St James's Place (STJ) 332.80p -1.71%Northgate (NTG) 194.70p -1.67%Carpetright (CPR) 590.50p -1.58%Ophir Energy (OPHR) 577.00p -1.54%Go-Ahead Group (GOG) 1,119.00p -1.41%Yule Catto & Co (YULC) 232.00p -1.36%BC