US OPEN
Wall Street shares were on the up on Tuesday, following yesterday's losses as traders put fear to one side for now and were buoyed by positive consumer confidence stats.
In London, the UK benchmark was lower however, despite big mining stocks staging a recovery.
The Dow Jones is up 46 points at the time of writing to 16,047, while the tech heavy Nasdaq added 21 to 4,656. The broader based S&P500 went seven points higher at 1,889.
Investors in the US cheered the fact that consumer confidence rose slightly this month (September) to 103.0 from a revised 101.1 in August.
It was the highest level since January, when consumer confidence touched an eight-year high.
Traders are still in wait and see mode, to a certain extent.
Michael Hewson, at CMC Markets, said: "Yesterday’s US data didn’t really shed any new light of when to expect a rate rise, with Fed officials once again insisting that October was a “live” meeting, and that oil and US dollar influences remain “transitory” in the context of an overall decision.
"Continued uncertainty about the timing of a Fed rate hike has continued to dominate sentiment with William Dudley of the New York Fed still insistent that he expected to see a rate rise this year, but with the caveat that circumstances could delay it, while the head of the Chicago Fed Charles Evans reiterated his belief that 2016 was probably a more conservative option."
In company news,Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) shares jumped 5.1% to $29.00 after the search engine told investors it would press on with its planned sale of its stake in Chinese online retail giant Alibaba (NASDAQ:BABA) despite being unsure of the tax implications of the deal.
Elsewhere, Cypress Semiconductor (NASDAQ:CY) rose after it revealed it had withdrawn its bid to buy Atmel (NASDAQ:ATML).
A big gainer was California Resource Corp (NYSE: CRC), which gained 9.19% to US$2.56.
LUNCHTIME
The UK’s main index nudged lower again today despite a recovery in the beleaguered mining sector.
After Investec fired its shots at Glencore (LON:GLEN) and Anglo American (LON:AAL) yesterday, two Swiss banks rode in to the aid of the miners today.
UBS said it believes the miners, particularly Glencore’s stock, has been oversold.
Analyst Myles Allsop said: “While the volatility in the share and concerns about management credibility is likely to put off investors near-term, we expect the share to re-rate over 6-12 months as management delivers on promises to cut net debt and as the copper price picks up.”
Elsewhere, Credit Suisse, another Swiss bank, also added its backing to Glencore, which, having fallen 29% to 69p yesterday, rebounded 9.1% to 75p.
It wasn’t enough to keep the FTSE 100 above water however, as the index eased a further 22 points to 5,936.
Analysts said investors continued to fret about slowing growth in China and uncertainty over when the Federal Reserve will begin raising US interest rates.
Sitting at the bottom of the index was Wolseley (LON:WOS) as it warned that the building market remained tough.
The shares fell 506p to 3,672p as Wolseley said industrial markets in North America, which make up about 15% of revenue in the region, were challenging in the fourth quarter and it expected that to continue.
In oil, the price of a barrel of brent crude gained 1.5% to US$48 while West Texas Intermediate rose the same to US$45.
As a result, BP (LON:BP.) up 1.5% to 327p and Shell (LON:RDSB), 2.3% higher to 1,549p, found themselves near the top of the index.
Away from the FTSE100, there were a slew of companies reporting interim results today.
Zoltav Resources (LON:ZOL) said it generated higher revenues in the first half of the year as it moves from an oil and gas developer to a producer. Shares rose 9.3% to 41p.
Conversely, Panmure Gordon dropped more than 20% to 98.5p as it blamed tough competition for lower fees and commissions. The broker swung to a pre-tax loss of £230,000 in the first half of the year.
Elsewhere in the small cap space, Alecto Minerals (LON:ALO) said its scoping study suggested production of 27,000 ounces of gold for three years at a cost of US$582 per ounce (totalling US$97.5mln) could be feasible.
It would involve combining its permits Gourbassi East and Gourbassi West within the Farikounda Gold permit with the Kossanto East Gold Project and Barani East within Desert Gold's Farabantourou Gold permit. Shares gained almost 40% to 0.14p.
Meanwhile, Mirada (LON:MIRA) said the next phase of a contract roll-out with South American media group Televisa has been delayed by a few months.
The AIM-listed group has picked up additional development work with Televisa, but even with this, earnings this year will be well below market expectations, though ahead of last year. Shares shed almost a quarter to 8p.
MARKET OPEN
London shares started Tuesday on the back foot although miners got some respite following Monday's commodity collapse.
The FTSE 100 Index dropped 31.2 points to 5927 after Asian markets fell, with the Shanghai Composite off 2% and the Nikkei down 4%.
Analysts said investors continued to fret about slowing growth in China and uncertainty over when the Federal Reserve will begin raising US interest rates.
Chief market analyst at foreign exchange firm FXTM, Jameel Ahmad, said: "On top of this, commodity prices remain depressed and there are continual concerns over the pace of economic recovery in both Japan and Europe."
However, miners staged a comeback after losses in the sector, with a fall of nearly 30% in the shares of Glencore (LON:GLEN) proving impossible for the rest of the sector to ignore.
Glencore itself regained 6.1p to 74.72p while Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) increased 38p to 2149p, BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) lifted 11.2p to 975.3p and Anglo American (LON:AAL) put on 8p to 560.7p.
On the economic front, the Bank of England reported that mortgage approvals for house purchases picked up markedly for a third month running to stand at a 19-month high in August.
That failed to buoy shares in housebuilders, with Barratt Developments (LON:BDEV) sUBSiding 10.5p to 649.5p and Persimmon (LON:PSN) off 32p at 2077p.
Another company involved in the building market, Wolseley (LON:WOS), fell 447p to 3732p after it warned that markets remained tough.
Shares in Alecto Minerals (LON:ALO) increased by half their value, up 0.05p to 0.15p, on news that the company and partner Desert Gold had completed a study highlighting the "robust economics" of developing a potential 400,000 tonnes per annum low-cost gold heap leach operation combining Alecto's Kossanto East gold scheme in Mali and Desert Gold's Farabantourou gold project.
Iofina (LON:IOF) backtracked 1.25p to 18.25p as the iodine producer said revenue dropped in the face of lower iodine prices, although losses reduced.
MARKET PREVIEW
The FTSE 100 is seen more than 1% lower ahead of Tuesday’s open as the sell-off in global equity markets continues.
Much of the early market commentary will focus on the deluge of company reporting, as it is the penultimate day for those reporting interims to June 30, though the volatility among commodity and natural resource stocks will also continue to be a feature.
Those looking to far shores for a steer, won’t be in a positive frame of mind.
Market watchers point to expectations of US interest rate rise and worries over China among the drivers of the continuing global equity sell-off.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei dropped 3.6% to trade just above 17,000 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 3.3% and the Shanghai Composite was 2% lower.
Australia’s ASX 200, meanwhile, lost 3.8% to 4,918.
Before that, on Wall Street, the Dow Jones gave up over 200 points, 1.9%, to end Monday a sliver above 16,001 whereas the S&P fell further, losing 2.5% to 1,881 and the Nasdaq was down over 3%.
In London, IG Markets is calling the FTSE 100 down around 73 points at 5,895 to 5,897.