Market report: Thursday close

By THIS IS MONEY
Updated:

 

UK stocks ended lower as investors continued to fret about soaring oil prices, although gains on Wall Street and positive financial results from brewer SABMiller and telecoms group BT helped limit losses.

Despite a few bright spots, most stocks slipped during the session, with news and information group Reuters, which is often seen as a proxy for the wider market because it generates most of its revenue from the investment industry, leading decliners with a drop of 4.7%.

The FTSE 100 index closed down 43.1 points at 4,428.7 - taking back most of Wednesday's 57-point jump. Turnover was light, with just 2.3bn shares changing hands.

The blue-chip index has fluctuated in a 210-point range since the beginning of May and analysts said it showed little sign of deciding on one direction.

Dealers added that stocks were being kept under pressure on concern that high oil prices would lead to inflation, backing up the case for interest rate hikes. US crude futures are just shy of Friday's $41.85 peak, a record in the 21-year history of the New York Mercantile Exchange contract.

There was also a hint of caution ahead of Friday's expiry of FTSE 100 and individual equity options in the UK as well as US options, which could lead to extra volatility for markets.

Banks and insurers featured high up on the list of FTSE 100 losers. Insurer Royal & Sun Alliance dropped 3.5% after it was downgraded by analysts at Smith Barney.

Bradford & Bingley also fell, finishing 2.8% lower as analysts reacted cautiously to the mortgage bank's plans to cut costs and improve profitability by selling non-core parts of its business.

Software maker Sage was another feature, dragged down 2.2% after the outlook from its US peer Intuit disappointed investors.

But brewer SABMiller managed to buck the broadly lower trend. Its shares jumped 6.4% after annual profits at the maker of Miller Lite and Peroni beers soared 49 percent, beating market forecasts.

BT Group also attracted its fair share of buyers, ending the session up 3% after the fixed-line telecoms group said underlying profits rose by nearly a fifth over the year.

On the FTSE 250 index engineer Invensys slumped 7.8% after it said sustained progress was still some way off for its business, even though customer confidence was improving.

Small-cap Eidos also tumbled, ending down 31.9% after the video games publisher denied speculation it might be taken over.

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