London close: Late swoon by Footsie

LONDON (ShareCast) - Mining stocks proved a major millstone around Footsie's neck today while end of the month position closing also contributed to a fall of almost 2% on the blue-chip index, a decline that was mirrored on Wall Street.

The US market gave back most of yesterday's gains in the morning session after US consumer spending fell for the first time in five months in September, as the Obama administration's car scrappage scheme ended.

Metal prices were in retreat, prompting investors to bail out of mining stocks, including precious metals miners such as Fresnillo and Randgold. Among base metal miners, Kazakhmys, Xstrata, Lonmin, ENRC, Antofagasta and Vedanta all suffered reverses of 5% or more.

Clothing retailers such as Burberry, Marks & Spencer and Next were wanted following the release of the consumer confidence data from GfK/NOP which showed that UK consumers are more confident now than at any time in the last 21 months.

Pharmaceuticals firm Shire was the best performing FTSE 100 constituent after announcing a smaller than feared 14% drop in third quarter revenue. Shareholders were cheered by a 20% surge in sales of core products.

Advertising giant WPP also cheered the market by saying overall conditions are "less worse". The advertising sector is usually one of the last to emerge from a recession, so signs of a recovery will be welcomed. WPP saw a marked improvement in profitability in the third quarter, while revenues rose by 16.7% to £2.007bn.

Directories group Yell, which yesterday extended the deadline for its refinancing to 5pm that evening, jumped after it said that it has made significant progress over the last 24 hours and is now awaiting acceptances from the final two lenders.

Iron ore producer Ferrexpo announced that it will pay an interim dividend of 3.3 cents a share, having deferred the decision when it delivered interim results in August due to market uncertainty.

Rolls-Royce has won a $720m order to supply Trent 700 engines for ten Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330 aircraft. Deliveries for the planes, six of which have been ordered by Virgin Atlantic and four by aircraft leasing company AerCap, will begin in 2011. The contract includes long-term TotalCare service support.

Elsewhere in aerospace, aero-engineer and defence systems group Meggitt is trading in line with expectations and said it has seen signs of stabilisation. In the last four months the group said it seen signs of stabilisation in the key macro drivers of its civil aftermarket, namely, air traffic and the number of landings made by the business jet fleet.

F&C Asset Management's third quarter got a lift from surging stock markets and favourable currency movements, sending assets under management up 12.3% during the period.

South African gold miner Harmony Gold lifted production of the yellow metal by 6% against expectations of 4% in the quarter to September 30 but felt the pinch of a stronger rand.

The UK government's car scrappage scheme has done Lookers a big favour, helping the car dealer deliver third quarter results "significantly" ahead of both budget and last year's effort.

Port operator Forth Ports said trading within its ports division is in line with expectations with new business initiatives and tonnage increases in some areas helping to reinforce the resilience of its business in a difficult market.

Bus and train operator National Express was back in the news again after yesterday's collapse of merger talks with rival Stagecoach. The company's largest shareholder, the Cosmen family, expressed concern about the company's lack of a "well-defined strategy" to address "broader and long-term issues" faced by the company.

'We are greatly concerned that the board risks losing further value for all shareholders by not keeping the company's options open and we would urge the board to seek independent financial and legal advice to assist it in this review process,' a statement from the family said.

Chemicals group Elementis said trading in the period since 1 July has continued to be in line with expectations, with volumes having stabilised at higher levels than those experienced during the first six months of the year and contribution margins remaining steady.

Mining royalty company Anglo Pacific Group said it has seen a substantial increase in the value of the group's quoted strategic investments in the second half of the year.

Indian investment vehicle Hirco moved back into profit in the second half of its financial year as the Indian economy began to pick up. After posting an after-tax loss of £30.9m at the interim stage, the township developer made a profit of £13.2m in the six months to 30 September. Loss after tax for the full year was £17.7m.

Latin American focused oil and gas explorer Gold Oil swung to a loss in what it called a challenging year. The group made a loss on ordinary activities before tax of £307m in the year ended 30 April compared with £1.14m last time.

FTSE 100 - Risers Shire Plc (SHP) 1,072.00p +4.69% G4S (GFS) 253.00p +2.18% TUI Travel (TT.) 233.10p +1.35% Land Securities Group (LAND) 662.00p +1.22%

FTSE 100 - Fallers Kazakhmys (KAZ) 1,089.00p -8.18% Fresnillo (FRES) 741.50p -7.54% Xstrata (XTA) 882.50p -6.81% Lonmin (LMI) 1,463.00p -6.46%