LONDON: The oil sector played spoil-sport preventing the FTSE-100 reaching the landmark figure of 5600 Wednesday. The index climbed to within 26 points of the magical figure but shied away finally as early gains were reversed by losses in the oil sector and worries about a U.S. inflation.
Hopes triggered by a better performing phone operator Vodafone were shattered by losses in oil sector shares, which actually led the index to close 10 points down (0.2 per cent) at 5,528.8 at the end of trading. In intra-day trading it had touched a high of 5,574 points.
The heavy selling in BG Group, BP and Royal Dutch Shell during the afternoon following the U.S. decision to pile up 2.7 million barrels of crude to its inventories last week contributed to the fall. The oil and gas sector accounts for a fifth of the FTSE 100's value.
BG fell 16.5 pence to close at 552 pence, BP by 13.5 pence at 646.5 pence and Royal Dutch Shell 22 pence at 1,887 pence.
The mining sector too was affected as the leader Rio Tinto's shares hit a high of 2543 pence but came down by 11 pence at the end of the day at 2490 pence. However, stocks like Antofagasta remained firm to gain 33 pence to close at 1,738 pence.
The stock that truly impacted the FTSE was Vodafone, with a gain of 2.4 per cent, or 3 pence to close at 128.75 pence following news that the company had got some 57,000 new customers in Japan in November, in a market that posed a lot of uncertainty for the firm.
Leading the FTSE losers was, however, Standard Chartered Bank, which lost 3 per cent, or 38 pence to close at 1,215 pence. Other bank stocks -- HBOS, HSBC, Alliance and Leicester and Lloyds TSB -- however, registered gains. Surprisingly, Barclays slipped 0.5 pence to close at 603 pence and analysts attributed the reason to the departure of its U.K. banking boss Roger Davis.
In the aviation sector, British Airways gained 2 per cent, or 6.5 pence to close at 334.25 pence and easyJet up 6.75 pence to 358 pence.
Analysts said apart from sector performance, Inflation and related interest-rate issues in the U.S. had an impact on the Wall Street, which affected the FTSE too. Some analysts even seem to be suggesting to take profits from equity markets as the year draws to a close.
Posted
on : Thu, 08 Dec 2005 08:50 GMT | General News
By : Mark Richardson
|
