A buoyant session for blue-chip financial stocks failed to boost the London market today amid renewed fears over the global economy and subdued trading on Wall Street.
The FTSE 100 Index gave back most of yesterday’s gains, down 36.4 points at 5,793.3, despite a sector-wide broker upgrade for UK bank stocks and better-than-expected third quarter results from financial service giant JP Morgan Chase.
Sentiment in London was also hit by lacklustre trading overnight in Asia.
Financial stocks were among those enjoying gains after the JP Morgan figures and as broker Deutsche Bank upgraded its rating on the banking sector.
Standard Chartered led the way, with a rise of 32p to 1427.5p, while Lloyds Banking Group lifted 0.5p to 39.7p.
Barclays and HSBC lost early session rises, however, closing down 0.5p to 232.2p and 1.9p to 595.3p respectively.
Financial services provider Hargreaves Lansdown was the biggest Footsie riser – up 3%, or 24p to £7.12 – after a strong first quarter trading update.
Global economy worries weighed on heavily-weighted miners, with Kazakhmys down 30.5p to 715.5p and Evraz off 13.3p at 234.3p.
The engineering sector was hit by another profit warning – this time from FTSE 250 Index-listed industrial material firm Morgan Crucible, whose shares plunged 11%, or 28.5p to 227.3p.
The news had a knock-on effect on GKN, which fell 7.1p to 209.9p in the top tier.
Wickes owner Travis Perkins was also lower in the FTSE 250, down 41p to £10.94 after it reported a 2.4% fall in third quarter sales and said margins were coming under pressure.
Elsewhere, shares in troubled London cab maker Manganese Bronze were suspended at 10p after it said a steering box fault would force it to recall 400 cabs and put all sales of its TX4 model on hold.
Carrie Keenan, of investment manager and financial planning specialist Brewin Dolphin in Aberdeen, noted Bridge Energy up 2.2% to 136.5p and FirstGroup 1.6% higher at 190.15p as well as Premier Oil off 3.5% at 361.9p, Petrofac 2.2% lower at £15.95 and EnQuest down 2% at 118.6p.