MARKET CLOSE
The UK’s main index eked out a small gain on Christmas Eve, after rebounding strongly over the last two days.
Volumes were thin on Thursday, with the so-called Santa rally apparently finished for Christmas.
A generally flat day meant the FTSE 100 finished around 13 points higher at 6,254.
It has not been a great year for the index, which is currently down almost 5% since January thanks in no small part to the fall of mining stocks.
And miners were in the news again today, as Anglo American (LON:AAL) managed to sold off its coal mine in Australia.
Anglo agreed to sell its 83% stake in the Dartbrook mine to Australian Pacific Coal for up to A$50mln.
The deal comprises an upfront cash payment of A$25mln plus a A$25mln capped royalty
Chris Beauchamp, senior market analyst, at IG, said: “Even now, miners are in the news, having dominated the agenda so much of late.
“Anglo American has managed to add some small change to its dwindling cash pile as it sells off a coal mine in Australia and the fire sale will continue into the New Year,” he added.
Shares in the miner rose around 3p, or 1%, to 326p, which, on a slow day for the market, meant it was one of the bigger risers.
Away from the FTSE100, shares in big data company Wandisco (LON:WAND) surged almost 9% to 85p following news late last night of two contract wins for its Big Data business.
They consist of an initial deal with a new customer in financial services; and a scale-up deal with an existing customer in telecoms.
Meanwhile, Sirius Minerals (LON:SXX) was also higher, managing to add 8.9% to end at 15p. The group signed a deal with one of China’s major fertiliser importers. The take-or-pay offtake agreement with Huaken International will run for seven years from the start of production at the York Potash Mine in North Yorkshire.
Canaccord Genuity (LON:CF) climbed around 8.7% to 250p as RBC Global Asset Management has now taken its stake in the broker to more than 5% and now owns 5.8mln shares.
Conversely, Game Digital (LON:GMD) lost another penny to 122p as the video game retailer warned on profits yesterday after weak sales in the run-up to Christmas and an unexpectedly steep fall in older-format Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game and software sales, down 56.7% to £23.4mln.
LONDON OPEN
London’s blue-chip stocks made a flat start to Thursday as investors appear to have already left for the holidays.
Yesterday saw the first unadulterated Santy rally of the Christmas period, with the major indices hitting a variety of recent highs.
But, Connor Campbell, at spread-betting firm Spreadex, said: “Santa may be a bit too busy to bother with the markets today.”
In Europe, the French Cac40 eased around 8 points to 3,606, while the German Dax has already shut up shop for Christmas.
In the UK, the FTSE100 lifted 7 points to 6,246 benefiting from the latest rebound by Brent Crude.
A barrel of the black stuff was another 0.8% higher to US$37.66 while the West Texas Intermediate price rose 0.7% to US$37.78.
Among the index’s top risers were Shell (LON:RDSB), which gushed 1.2%, or 18p, to 1,582p, while rival BP (LON:BP.) climbed around 1.1% to 364p.
Away from the index, property investment trust Segro (LON:SGRO) has agreed to sell its portfolio of offices in Bath Road, Slough, for £325mln.
The sale price means the company will net an initial yield of 5.6% and is a small premium to book value at 30 June 2015. Shares gained around 4p to 433p.
In the small cap arena, Caza Oil & Gas (LON:CAZA, TSE:CAZ) has confirmed it has today closed its US$45.5mln equity refinancing with Talara Capital Management.
It sees the investor take control of 95.3% of the junior oil and gas company. Shares jumped 31.6% to 0.25p making it the day’s biggest riser.
Also higher was Bellzone Mining (LON:BZM), as it inked a deal with Hudson Global Group Ltd.
Hudson has a 50.5% stake in Bellzone and will make a loan facility of up to US$6.5mln available to the miner, which is thought to be enough to cover its working capital for 2016. Shares jumped 17.6% to 0.5p.
PRE-OPEN
The Santa Claus rally came early according to IG Markets which sees the FTSE 100 opening slightly lower on Christmas Eve.
London’s blue chip benchmark is seen about 10 points lower at 6,231 to 6,236.
It comes after Wall Street posted a third strong finish in a row, with the Dow Jones rising 185 points or just over 1% to 17,602.
The S&P 500 added about 25 points, 1.24%, on Wednesday to 2,064 while the Nasdaq rose 0.9% to 5,045.
Energy stocks, as a sector, meanwhile, gained about 4.75%. PetroChina, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell were among the most notable risers.
In Asia, the foot had come off the gas somewhat. Japan’s Nikkei moved 0.5% lower to 18.789 and the Shanghai Composite was down 0.7% at 3,610.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, meanwhile, rose 0.44% to 22,138.
Australia’s ASX 200 was 1.3% stronger at 5,207.
A 4% rally in crude oil prices was a key driver for Wednesday’s rally, as both Brent and WTI climbed in lock-step to US$37.73 and US$37.75 respectively.
Michael Hewson, analyst at CMC Markets, highlighted that many of the recent stock market moves must be considered in the context of “thinning pre-holiday volumes” and “end of year book keeping and position adjustments”.
“It is these sorts of end of year adjustments that helps explain to some extent why the biggest risers over the past couple of days have come from the sectors that have seen some of the biggest losses year to date,” he said in a note.
“Even allowing for the rebound seen in the last couple of days, equity markets are still well below the levels that we started out at in the first week of December.”