London’s blue-chip stocks opened slightly lower this morning as overseas markets slipped back overnight.
Wall Street benchmarks were in the red after Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen spoke confidently about the likely prospect of an interest rate rise.
Meanwhile, in Asia, it was a mixed session as Japan’s Nikkei was largely unchanged while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and Australia’s ASX 200 slipped about 0.3% and 0.6% lower to 22,417 and 5,227 respectively.
It was a weak bunch of service sector data out of Asia today that did for the markets, with Australia, China and Japan all seeing their service PMIs weaken.
Europe saw fairly flat opening across, with the German Dax gaining 8 points to 11,198 while the French Cac40 rose by 11 points to 4,916.
It’s a potentially big day for the Eurozone, with analysts expecting a stimulus-stuffed speech from ECB president Mario Draghi just after lunch, he added.
Connor Campbell, at spread-betting firm Spreadex, said it was “a case of pre-Draghi jitters leaving investors unwilling to act with too much vigour.”
In the UK, the FTSE100 was around 5 points lower at 6,416 with miners weighing on the index yet again.
The Chinese services PMI spooked the commodity sector, with Anglo American (LON:AAL) down 2.4% to 387p, BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) losing 2.3% to 1,080p and Glencore (LON:GLEN), easing 1.8% to 91p, among the morning’s big early fallers.
On the corporate front, Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSB) has been granted final approval in Australia for its merger with BG Group (LON:BG.), leaving China as the only country yet to support the deal. Shares in Shell and BG nudged 1p higher.
While there were few big movers in the large and midcap space, the small cap space saw a number of big gainers and fallers.
Starcom (LON:STAR) was the biggest riser of the morning session as it said it has signed a deal worth US$5.5mln over three years – its biggest contract to date.
It will supply its Helios vehicle tracking devices to a Nairobi, Kenya-based firm called Pinnacle Systems. Shares gained some 78% to 4p.
Elsewhere, Cluff Natural Resources (LON:CLNR) unveiled a third party assessment of its North Sea acreage which estimates some 845bn cubic feet (BCF) of gas across four licences. Shares gushed 15.4% to 3.75p.
Also higher was Sunrise Resources (LON:SRES), which leased out its County Line Diatomite claims to EP Minerals for 25 years.
The terms of the deal will see Sunrise receive a revenue-based royalty every six months from the start of production. Shares leapt 14.3% to 0.2p.
Conversely, DiamondCorp (LON:DCP) has agreed a debt rescheduling with main lender IDC and will launch a placing to raise a further £4mln. Shares dropped 17% to 6.1p.
Share