FTSE 100 falls on weakness in mining shares
The leading share index opened down this morning, as headline mining shares dropped on concerns over the weak global outlook.
Miner Bumi led the fallers in early trade, as it announced it is to investigate its Indonesian operations for alleged financial irregularities.
Miners Evraz, Anglo American and Ferrexpo lost 3.75 per cent, 3.3 per cent and 2.88 per cent respectively.
Outside of the miners, commercial vehicle hire business Northgate fell 3.68 per cent, while home shopping group Findel fell 4.47 per cent.
Property business LSL Property Services fell 3.23 per cent, and construction group Morgan Sindall declined 3.13 per cent, despite winning several new projects recently.
With regards to the leaderboard, defence technology group QinetiQ added 6.64 per cent, as investors reacted positively to its better-than-expected trading update.
Sportingbet was ahead by almost 4.5 per cent this morning, as talks over a merger with bookmaker William Hill continued.
Diamond mining firm Petra Diamonds rose 3.74 per cent in early trade, as it announced revenue was up 44 per cent on the previous year.
Insurer CPP Group was up more than 2.5 per cent. It is in the process of considering a court-backed turnaround plan to restructure its business following an FSA probe.
Most UK banking shares had a muted start to the day. HSBC was down 0.07 per cent, Barclays declined 0.34 per cent and RBS was off by 0.25 per cent. However, Lloyds Banking Group was up 2.4 per cent.
In Asia, the Nikkei closed 0.45 per cent down, marking the lowest close for a week. In the US, the Dow Jones closed down 0.13 per cent.