Market overview: FTSE 100 finishes down 0.6%

LONDON (ShareCast) - 1630: Close London's resource-heavy FTSE 100 finished the session down 40.31 points (-0.58%) at 6,855.02 as it continued its retreat from the record closing high of 7,037.67 reached on Monday. A sell-off in iron ore to a six-year low and a stronger dollar hit share prices in the mining sector. "The return of dollar strength has seen commodity prices take a tumble, and subsequently the heavy weighting of the mining sector in the FTSE has seen it struggle to keep pace with more sprightly European equity markets," said IG (LSE: IGG.L - news) 's Alastair McCaig. 1504: Carnival (LSE: CCL.L - news) 's shares have surged nearly 6% after the cruise operator impressed with its Q1 results in which EPS came in a 20 cents, compared with a break-even Q1 in 2014. In December, the company had guided to EPS of 7-11 cents. Carnival also said cumulative advance bookings for the remainder of 2015 are currently ahead of the prior year at higher prices.

1302: Stock futures Stateside are pointing to another day in the red ahead of a speech from Janet Yellen. The Fed chair is expected to speak on 'The New Normal for Monetary Policy' at 19:45 with investors waiting to see if she will shed any light on the timing of the rate hike.

1121: German news outlet Bild on Friday reports, via Greek news site Kontra, that Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is getting ready to resign, citing an unnamed Greek government insider as saying, "It is only a matter of time until Varoufakis resigns. It is a done deal." The Greek government has denied the report. Greece's ASE Index is currently up 0.8%.

1040: Barratt Developments (LSE: BDEV.L - news) is higher after announcing that chief executive Mark Clare has stepped down following nine years in the role, to be replaced by finance director David Thomas. Analysts had criticised Clare for being unambitious.

0954: Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS.L - news) has dipped into the red after confirming it will be offloading its Coutts private banking business to Switzerland's Union Bancaire Privée. The sale price hasn't been announced, though RBS did say that it expects a £200m charge relating to a goodwill write-off in its first-quarter results.

0905: UK stocks are declining for a fourth straight day as the FTSE 100 continues to pull back from recent all-time highs. Inflation data from Japan overnight also failed to buoy sentiment as the core consumer price index fell to 2%. Stripping out the effect of last April's sales tax increase, inflation dropped to just 0%. Looking ahead, Friday is set to be a quiet day in terms of economic data, with US economic growth and consumer sentiment figures the only major release. The FTSE 100 is down 11.62 points at 6,883.71 with mining stocks among the worst performers.