London’s blue-chip stocks ended the day with moderate gains as this morning’s momentum was lost as Asia stocks fell.
The calming words of People’s Bank of China chief Zhou Xiaochuan had a fairly short shelf-life.
He assured investors that the ‘correction in the stock market is almost done’, with more stability on the horizon.
David Madden at IG, said: “The overall sentiment is still sceptical, and China’s trade balance figures, due overnight, have prevented dealers from running with the rally.”
Connor Campbell at Spreadex said: “After the dust settled and the realisation that, despite what the central bank governor said, the Shanghai Composite still fell by 2.5%, investors were all of a sudden not as willing to lift the European indices as they were at the start of the day.”
While the European gains didn’t completely disappear like they had been threatening to, the lack of action on Wall Street today for Labour Day sapped meant there was little to work with.
The German Dax ended 70 points higher to 10,109 while the Cac40 nudged 25 points up to 4,549.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 ended 30 points to the good at 6,074 with miners storming ahead.
Near the top of the pile was Glencore (LON:GLEN), after it announced plans to tackle its debt mountain.
The company plans to raise up to US$2.5bn through an equity issue, suspend dividend payments until further notice and to raise US$2bn through the sale of assets. Shares gained 7.1% to 131p.
Standing at the very top of the index, however, was Antofagasta (LON:ANTO), up 7.5% to 607p.
The copper miner was higher after rival Glencore announced the suspension of two of its copper mines in Africa, cutting its copper output by a fifth.
Primark-owner Associated British Foods (LON:ABF) was a big faller, down 26p at 3,013p, after a pre-close trading statement that revealed the company’s full-year results will see a decline in adjusted operating profit for the group.
The group, which also owns British Sugar, said the expected decline was down to tough times in the sugar business and unhelpful exchange rates.
Away from the index, Lekoil (LON:LEK) gained more than 7% to 22p, as the Otakikpo field, in Nigeria, achieved first oil.
It started from two of four production strings in the Otakikpo-002 well and flowed at peak rates of 5,703 barrels of oil per day, significantly ahead of company expectations.
In other news, Audioboom (LON:BOOM) rose 11% to 5p on the news high profile property developer Nick Candy, had bought £480,000 worth of shares.
Central Rand Gold (LON:CRND) was also lower as the company said the progress of talks with one Asian investor group has slowed while talks with another have gone from them acquitting Central Rand Gold to making a “significant initial investment.”
Talks with both are on-going, having started in July and shares lost 18% to 9.5p.