London close: Footsie closes with losses
Tops stocks ended the day firmly in the red as miners and housebuilders weighed on the benchmark index.
BHP Billiton, Anglo American and Xstrata headed south as metal prices drifted back from recent highs.
Other resources stocks also suffered. Oil majors Royal Dutch Shell and BP beat a retreat as oil prices continued to trade below $62 a barrel ahead of tomorrow's US crude inventories report. BP announced today the appointment of an independent expert to monitor progress in implementing safety improvements suggested by the Baker Panel.
Amongst the real estate sector, Hammerson, Land Securities, British Land and Slough Estates were all heavily lower. Hanson was the biggest faller as investors took profits after last weeks strong gains on possible bid rumours.
Reuters was one of the best performers after confirming it is in talks with Thomson about a possible deal worth 705p a share. The offer would be made up of 352.5p a share in cash and 0.16 Thomson for each Reuters share held.
Unilever gained following a string of positive broker notes including Friday's upgrade from Citigroup, meanwhile weekend reports of private equity interest gave supermarket chain Wm Morrison a lift.
BAE Systems is planning a placing to raise around £750m to help fund its $4.1bn acquisition of Armor Holdings of the US.
Insurer Standard Life reported a better than expected 40% hike in first quarter sales Tuesday, with growth being driven by strong UK sales of life and pensions business in the UK.
No-frills airline Easyjet saw passenger numbers rise by 10% in April but like its main rivals, it load factor fell, to 83.1% from 86.4%. "As we stated last winter, we continue to see pressure on yields in the summer against high comparatives from last year and due to continued competition. Our guidance remains unchanged, for the full year to September 2007 we expect pre-tax profit growth of 40% to 50%," it said.
Autonomy rose as investors try to assess the value of Blinkx, its video recognition technology arm, which is to be demerged soon.
Africa-focused gold miner Randgold Resources was also lower after quarterly profit came in almost flat versus the same period last year.
Arken POP, part of Media Square, has secured a contract with CBS Outdoor to design and manufacture advertising display units for use across the London Underground network. The multi-million pound contract is the largest ever secured by Arken.
Acquisitive newspaper group Mecom has reached agreement to buy Wegener, the Netherlands' largest regional newspaper group, for €805.7m, to take its spending over the past year to well over £1bn.
Sirius surged ahead after IT services group SSP Holdings announced it agreed to acquire the financial software provider for £43.4m in cash and shares.
FTSE 100 - Risers
Tate & Lyle (TATE) 664.50p +3.34%
Home Retail Group (HOME) 483.00p +3.21%
Reuters Group (RTR) 630.00p +2.31%
Unilever (ULVR) 1,658.00p +1.97%
William Morrison (MRW) 335.25p +1.82%
Associated British Foods (ABF) 947.00p +1.55%
Sage Group (SGE) 268.25p +0.85%
Shire (SHP) 1,168.00p +0.78%
BT Group (BT.A) 319.00p +0.71%
Mitchells & Butlers (MAB) 833.00p +0.60%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) 646.00p -66.82%
Hanson (HNS) 1,030.00p -3.78%
Rolls-Royce (RR.) 493.50p -3.52%
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Vedanta Resources (VED) 1,386.00p -2.94%
BHP Billiton plc (BLT) 1,185.00p -2.71%
Hammerson (HMSO) 1,581.00p -2.71%
BAE Systems (BA.) 435.00p -2.47%
International Power (IPR) 443.75p -2.31%
British Land (BLND) 1,493.00p -2.23%
Slough Estates (SLOU) 776.00p -2.21%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Autonomy (AU.) 800.50p +4.50%
HMV Media (HMV) 119.00p +3.48%
Speedy Hire (SDY) 1,285.00p +2.15%
SThree (STHR) 497.00p +2.05%
Misys (MSY) 257.75p +1.98%
National Express (NEX) 1,291.00p +1.97%
Kesa Electricals (KESA) 341.25p +1.94%
Keller Group (KLR) 1,007.50p +1.77%
Millennium & Copthorne (MLC) 751.50p +1.69%
JJB Sports (JJB) 298.75p +1.62%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
easyJet (EZJ) 631.50p -7.13%
BlueBay (BBAY) 488.00p -4.59%
Tomkins (TOMK) 289.00p -4.46%
PartyGaming (PRTY) 44.25p -3.80%
Randgold Resources (RRS) 1,230.00p -3.61%
Redrow (RDW) 621.00p -3.42%
Aquarius Platinum (AQP) 1,458.00p -3.32%
Carpetright (CPR) 1,064.00p -3.18%
Restaurant Group (RTN) 357.00p -2.99%
Wimpey (WMPY) 587.00p -2.98%
