The morning session picked up where it left off last night for the UK’s main index, with miners languishing at the bottom of the index.
An 8.7% and 6.8% drop in Chinese imports and exports for the month of November caused the Shanghai Composite to fall to fresh 3 week lows during the Asian session.
Connor Campbell, at spread-betting firm Spreadex, said: “Barring the Asian indices themselves the miners appeared to be the worst hit by this latest piece of dreary data, the likes of Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) and BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) plunging to 6 and 10 year nadirs respectively.”
BHP was the biggest loser, easing 5.1%, or 39p, to 725p while Rio Tinto lost around 3.8% to 1,986p.
On the corporate front, Anglo American (LON:AAL) is scrapping its dividend for the first time in six years as part of a range of cost-cutting measures to combat weak commodity prices.
The platinum miner has suspended its pay-outs for the second half of this year and for 2016 it revealed in a statement on Tuesday. Shares fell 3.7%, or 13p, to 358p.
The miners contributed to a 9 point fall for the FTSE100, which stood at 6,214 around 9am.
It wasn’t all bad on the index, however, as the supermarkets rose after an upgrade from HSBC.
Despite not being in the index anymore, an upgrade for Morrisons (LON:MRW), to ‘hold’ from ‘reduce’ by the broker did the trick for the remaining FTSE100 supermarkets.
Shares in Morrisons gained 1.6% to 148p, while rival chain Sainsbury’s (LON:SBRY) was the top riser, climbing 3.6% to 250p.
In the small cap space, After more than six months suspended, shares in Challenger Acquisitions (LON:CHAL) began trading again earlier this morning.
The decision to put the quote on hold followed the unveiling of two acquisitions that triggered the market’s arcane reverse takeover rules. Shares rocketed 26.3%, or 10p, to 48p.
Elsewhere, Motive Television (LON:MTV) said discussions over extending the repayment deadline on its convertible loan notes (CLNs) are now at an advanced stage. Shares jumped 20% to 0.02p.
Conversely, domain name specialist CentralNic (LON:CNIC) found itself as one of the day’s biggest fallers, down 22.6% to 44p.
The firm has unveiled a transformational deal to acquire an Aussie rival for almost £16mln (A$33mln). It is buying privately-owned Instra Group, funded in part from a £10mln placing of stock with investors at 40p a share.
Also lower was Model railway maker Hornby (LON:HRN), which chugged into the red in the first half but said it was doing well in the run-up to Christmas. Shares lost around 5% to 90p.