London’s blue-chip stocks retreated further today, led by the miners as the surprising Fed comments yesterday weighed on the market.
The FTSE100, eased 42 points, 0.6%, to 6,395, but had dipped as low as 70 points earlier in the afternoon session.
Things were a little better in Europe, though both the French Cac40 and the German Dax ended 0.1% and 0.2% lower respectively.
Over in the US, markets struggled as investors continued to mull over the Fed comments.
The Dow Jones average was down 39 points, or 0.2%, at 17,740, while the broader-based S&P 500 was off six points (0.3%) at 2,084. The hardest hit was the Nasdaq, which was 26 points lower to 5,069.
Back in the UK, mining company shares slumped alongside commodities on the threat of emerging market instability if the Fed hikes rates this year.
Among the fallers were Randgold Resources (LON:RRS) down 5%, or 237p, to 4,449p, while Anglo American (LON:AAL) fell 4.6% or 26p to 537p and Fresnillo (LON:FRES) dropped 4.3%, or 33p, to 734p.
Having all but dismissed the chance of a US interest rate rise this year, markets were caught out yesterday as the Fed indicated a December rate rise was a possibility.
The market uncertainty until December will likely cause investors to tread carefully, putting more scrutiny on company announcements.
One company suffering today was Barclays, which ended as the index’s biggest faller, losing some 6.3% to 237p.
The banking giant reported a near 30% drop in profits for its third quarter, underlining the challenge new boss Jes Staley will have in coming months.
In its core operations, pre-tax profit remained steady at around £1.76bn compared to £1.74bn in the third quarter of 2014, but it was down from £2.1bn in the second quarter of this year.
Elsewhere, Smith & Nephew (LON:SN.) struggled as currency headwinds did for the orthopaedic equipment giant, which also saw a sharp drop in him implant revenues. Shares lost 4.7% to 1,096p.
Eslewhere, TalkTalk (LON:TALK) was lower as BT (LON:BT.A) beat expectations as its fibre-optic broadband and sports division performing particularly well.
TalkTalk has been campaigning for BT to spin-off its Openreach broadband division on competition grounds.
Shares in TalkTalk dropped 4.2% to 241p, while BT nudged slightly higher to 469p.
In the small cap space, Falkland Oil & Gas (LON:FOGL) said the deep-water Humpback exploration well found oil and gas across a number of reservoir targets, but, not enough to be commercial. Shares slumped some 35% to 13p.
It wasn’t all bad news, however, as Surgical Innovations (LON:SUN) leapt 15% to 1.35p after executive chairman Nigel Rogers acquired 1mln shares at 1.3p per share split between him and his wife. He now owns 0.2% of the business.
Also on the up was TRakm8 (LON:TRAK) after it inked a deal to supply a US-based data company with its Bluetooth technology to communicate journey details to mobile phones. Shares jumped 9% to 245p.