London shares drifted on Friday as commodities weighed and investors sat on the sidelines ahead of US job news.
The FTSE 100 Index fell 5.7 points to 5893 as miners dropped after surging on the back of dollar weakness on Thursday, with Glencore (LON:GLEN) down 1.87% at 97.82p and Rio Tinto off 1.13% at 1837p.
London Capital Group (LCG) said the weaker dollar story was continuing on Friday as traders trimmed US long positions before US non-farm payrolls data later.
Brenda Kelly at LCG said: "Expected to print 190,000 jobs in January, a lot softer than the December number, there is a strong possibility that any miss on expectations will only push the dollar lower. Wage growth will be key with consensus looking for 0.3% gain month-on-month."
In equities, Just Eat was 30.9p, or 8.6%, tastier at 390.9p after a deal to buy four businesses in Italy, Spain, Brazil and Mexico, which are said to have a combined takeaway delivery market of more than £8bn.
British Gas owner Centrica (LON:CNA) inflated 0.3p to 196.9p after selling three wind farms for £115mln, part of a drive by chief executive Iain Conn to quit the wind power generation sector.
Investors gave BG Group (LON:BG.) the benefit of the doubt as it reported an excellent operational performance in 2015 despite a fall in earnings of nearly 40% due to lower oil prices.
Shares in BG, which is expected to complete its tie-up with Royal Dutch Shell in the next few weeks, rose 9p to 1066.5p.
Former BP boss Tony Hayward's Genel Energy (LON:GENL) got a 9.25p boost to 119.75p as it confirmed the receipt of January oil payments from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for the Taq Taq field.
Bahamas Petroleum (LON:BPC) shares shot up 0.36p, or 21.8%, to 2.01p after the Bahamian Senate passed a new petroleum bill and associated legislation paving the way for exploration in the Caribbean islands.
Greka Drilling (LON:GDL) backtracked 0.22p to 3.7p as it increased the number of wells drilled in 2015 by 38% as its main customer, Green Dragon Gas (LON:GDG) ramped up its activity in China.
Randeep Grewal, chairman and chief executive, also cited good medium term prospects in India, but said Greka was not immune to the crisis that has hit the oil and gas industry and reducing costs will remain a focus.
MARKET PREVIEW
After a week driven by oil price volatility, London’s blue chips are set for a steady start to Friday.
Today much of the focus turns to America and its job market, as the monthly non-farm payroll statistics will provide the latest bellwether for interest rate decision making.
The report, due in the early afternoon (in the UK), takes the temperature of the US jobs market which is believed to be among the pivotal considerations for US Federal Reserve when it decides rates.
Experts expect strong number will encourage another rate riser sooner, while weak ones could see that possibility move towards the back burner. For context, analyst consensus predicts 190,000 new jobs were created last month.
Wall Street’s Dow Jones closed Thursday’s trading around 80 points, 0.5%, higher on Thursday to 16,416 while the S&P 500 rose 0.15% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.12%.
In Asia this morning, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.6% to 19,298 while the Shanghai Composite and Japan’s Nikkei were on the back foot, losing 0.6% and 1.3% respectively.
Oil prices were just slightly lower, with Brent down 0.35% to US$34.35 and West Texas Intermediate was priced at around US$31.75.
In London, IG Markets sees the FTSE 100 flat calling it 5,897 to 5,899.