London open: Ugly start in London

It's an ugly start In London with only Johnson Matthey and Amec in the blue, while financials, miners and oils are under heavy selling pressure.Far East markets continued to fall Wednesday on continuing fears that China is planning fiscal measures to cool growth, adding to the unease this morning. The Chinese concerns have sparked more selling of the miners. Xstrata and Kazakhmys are the worst hit.Tullow Oil leads the oil sector lower. The oil company wants to raise almost £1bn to fund its exploration and production activities a day after shareholders rubber-stamped its purchase of Heritage Oil's 50% stake in Blocks 1 and 3A in Uganda. It is placing 80.43m shares with institutional investors at an as yet undisclosed price.Platinum specialist Johnson Matthey had some good news. It expects results this year to come in slightly better than market estimates as recovery comes through in a number of markets. Group sales excluding precious metals for the third quarter were 9% ahead of the same period last year.Hedge fund group Man is the worst performer on worries about the health of the markets generally, while UK taxpayer-controlled banks Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds have been hit by an IMF report that the whole global sector needs to raise many billions more to shore up its finances. A report that veteran banker and former Lloyds TSB chairman Sir Brian Pitman is set to become chairman of Richard Branson's finance arm, Virgin Money, has also unsettled the two UK banks.Soft drinks firm Britvic has seen 'robust' market conditions in the last quarter, but said it remains cautious about the outlook for consumer confidence and spending. The group also said that adverse weather conditions in the early weeks of January have resulted in a marked slowing of demand, while sales pressure in Ireland is continuing.Newsagent chain WH Smith reported a drop in sales, but said it remains confident in the outcome for the full year. Total group sales were down 2% with like for like (LFL) sales down 4% for the 21 weeks to 23 January. LFL sales in the High Street division fell by 5% and 4% in the 11 and 21 weeks respectively.Brewer Greene King's trading over the last nine weeks has remained 'relatively strong' despite the freezing weather, with food sales going well and Scottish arm Belhaven again doing a star turn.Stockbroker Charles Stanley said third quarter revenue rose 5.2% from the same period a year earlier after seeing a solid performance in all three of its divisions. For the three months to 31 December 2009 revenue rose to £28.4m from £27.0m the same quarter a year earlier.