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FTSE100 plunges 1.5% as Greece hurtles toward default

Published: 18:39 30 Jun 2015 BST

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Big cap miners helped FTSE100 on its journey southwards Tuesday with the fact Greece is hurtling to a default on its IMF loan not helping matters.

The deadline on the £1.1bn loan expires at midnight, and amid all that there is speculation in the press that the Tsipras government is still considering accepting a proposal from last night.

Other commentary says this is point blank not true.

The Greek government said earlier that it would not pay the International Monetary Fund the money it owes.

The latest news is that Greece submitted today a last minute plan for a two - year rescue deal.

FTSE100 closed 1.5% down at 6,520 making that 7,000 level seem a distant memory.

Chris Beauchamp, at IG, had this to say: "Equity markets clearly believe that we will sail past the deadline tonight without any developments, as the mad game of brinksmanship that has dominated the news for so long enters its final hours.

"Greece has asked for a two year extension to the ESM, but this would need approval from Germany, and jolting German MPs out of their afternoon naps is unlikely to win Athens many friends.

"The weekend referendum is still expected to yield a ‘yes’ result despite the government’s plan to campaign for a ‘no’ vote."

The German Dax is down 138, while France's CAC 40 index lost 40.

BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) was the biggest laggard, down 4.03% to 1,249p, while Anglo American (LON:AAL) also shed 3.16% to 918.5p.

Disappointing stats from Kantar on the state of the UK supermarkets sent Sainsbury (LON:SBRY) down 3.25% to 892p.

Meanwhile, the ONS revised its UK GDP growth estimate upwards for the first quarter from 0.3% to 0.4% - in line with estimates.

Online supermarket Ocado (LON:OCDO) saw shares nudge 3.70% higher to 445.9p as investors welcomed  half-year results, which showed a revenue rise.

Small cap gold miner Anglo Asian (LON:AAZ) shot up over 23% to 6.625p on the day after making gains on Monday too.

It told investors 2015 had started well and it expects gold production of between 70 and 75,000 ounces for the whole year.

That will be a 16 to 24% improvement on 2014, it told an AGM.

Shares in San Leon Energy (LON:SLE) also nudged higher after the Irish firm’s results showed  a “transformational” 2014.

Atlantic Coal (LON:ATC) rose over 4% as it reported good progress at its Stockton mine and expects first half (H1) revenues to end June to be stronger than the same period last year.

Revenues for the six months are expected to come in at around US$10.3mln compared to turnover of US$9.447mln in the same period in 2014.

That's on the back of coal sales of around 103,000 tons - 36% more than the 75,761 tons in 2014 -  including  clean coal sales of around 72,000 tons and run of mine (ROM) coal sales of around 31,000 tons.

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