London’s blue-chip stocks remained bogged-down by commodity-related firms all day, on weak Chinese growth data.
Anglo American (LON:AAL) dropped 44p to 630p, BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) slipped 22 p to 1.106p, Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) backtracked 35p to 2,457p and Glencore (LON:GLEN) was 6p off at 110p.
David Madden at IG said: “As far as mining company sell-offs go, we have seen worse in recent history, but the decline was enough to keep the British equity benchmark under water.”
China’s economic growth slowed in the third quarter, although was ahead of market expectations, while industrial output also was also down month-on-month.
“China’s growth figures were proof that the second-largest economy in the world is slowing down, and for the time being it looks like the country is heading for a soft landing,” Madden added.
There was no reprieve from the US, where, as expected, the Dow Jones was 12 points lower at 17, 204 while the S&P 500 was also down at 2,032 though the Nasdaq was slightly higher at 4,907.
In Europe, markets were also mixed, with the German Dax rising 0.5% to 10,164 while the French Cac40 just about kept its head above water, gaining just 1 point to 4,704.
This wasn’t the case in the UK, however, with the FTSE100 ending 25 points lower to 6,352 with oil stocks also making an appearance near the bottom of the index.
A barrel of brent crude lost 3% to US$48.97 while West Texas Intermediate fell around 2.5% to US$46.13.
Shell (LON:RDSB) slid 1.8% to 1,801p while BP (LON:BP.) spilled 1.1%, or 4.4p to 379p.
On the corporate front, ITV (LON:ITV) eased around 1p to 247p on news that it was buying Northern Ireland channel three licence holder UTV (LON:UTV) for £100mln.
Meanwhile, on a busy day for the small caps, PeerTV (LON:PTV) gained 45.3% to 0.02p.
The company has agreed with loan noteholders of Digitek to exchange 100% of the notes in issue for 75% of the Ordinary Share Capital and 75% of the Preference Share Capital of Digitek.
Digitek is no longer able to finance itself, and Peer said the move shows its “reluctance to continue supporting the Digitek business”.
While Peer was the biggest gainer of the day, it was not the only riser.
MySquar (LON:MYSQ), the Myanmar-focused social media phenomenon, has gone through the 1.5mln user mark and inked its first service agreement. Shares gained 15.5% to 6.5p.
Elsewhere, 88 energy (LON:88E) rose around 10% to 0.7p as it said it has acquired the additional information requested for its well permit in Alaska and hopes to start drilling in the coming days.
Conversely, LGO Energy was a big faller as the company started discussions over additional funding with its bank after its latest hole in Trinidad was plugged and abandoned after the pipe got stuck.
Meanwhile, Tribal Group (LON:TRB) lost 36% to 78p as it said revenues will be below expectations and profit will be significantly below expectations for the year.
The education management firm has moved away from mid-sized contracts, focusing on large deals and, as a result, is no longer building a pipeline of contracts.