Market overview: Miners down on China worries, Tesco crashes

1630:Close UK stocks finished the session percetibly lower, with the Footsie off by roughly twice as much as its European peers. Tesco was the stand-out faller, with technical analysts warning that the company´s share price graph was left looking even weaker after today´s falls. Reading between the lines however, some analysts seemed to hold out the possibility of value being found in the shares were they to fall towatrds 150p. Miners were also weak across the board, buffeted by worries regarding the outlook for China´s economy. BNP Paribas pushed back its call for the first increase in Bank Rate to February 2015, from November 2014. As of Friday Barclays stuck to its call for a November cut. All eyes will thus now turn towards tomorrow´s preliminary manufacturing sector from the Asian giant, courtesy of HSBC. FTSE 100 down 65 to 6,773.63.

1615: Fitch places Tesco´s debt on Ratings Watch Negative.

1614: “Tesco started today´s session with a second consecutive downwards gap, the upper part of which comes in at 229.6p (Friday´s closing level), making for a very nasty technical picture. To take note of, trading volumes were already quite high last Friday, which makes one wonder whether someone might not already have suspected that something might be amiss. In any case, until the stock is able to clamber back above the aforementioned level on a close-of-day basis then the outlook would appear to be quite clear cut. There are no obvious areas of technical support until the 156.8p mark,” muse technical analysts at Digital Look.

1511: Economists at BNP Paribas now see the UK economy growing at about a 3% clip this year and 2.75% next, with a further moderation towards around 2% in 2016. That is equivalent to a cut of 0.5 percentage points or so over 2014 and 2015. they explain. For that reason they now envisage the first rate hike by the Bank of England taking place in February of 2015 instead of in November of this year.

1500: US existing home sales fell 1.8% to 5.05m units in August, according to the National Association of Realtors. Analysts had predicted a 1% rise and it follows a 2.4% increase in July.

1143: Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei has said that economic growth in the country faces “some downward pressure”, adding that there will not be major changes in policy. The remarks are weighing on the whole mining sector.

1059: Given the recent strength in the US dollar index and how it has weighed on the commodities complex it should be pointed out that it is now at a level of technical resistance dating back to the third quarter of 2013. However, technical analysts at Charles Stanley say that: “ Unsurprisingly, this surge [to its highest since Q 2010] has left the US currency looking extremely overbought – its 14-week RSI pushed above 80% last week – and although it would not be surprising if this led to some short-term profit-taking there is still little in the chart to suggest that there are many sellers about.”

0958: Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis said four senior executives are leaving the company and the group has brought in outside attorneys and auditors to investigate the issue. In a statement, the company announced the misstatement was due to booking revenue early and delaying costs, and there were preliminary investigations into its UK food business.

0957: In reaction to the above news Cantor Fitzgerald has put its 'buy' recommendation and 325p price target on shares of Tesco under review.

0907: The Footsie is leading fallers on Monday after a profit warning from food retailing giant Tesco. The company believes it may have overestimated profit guidance for the half year by 250m pounds due to income and cost recognition issues. Over the weekend, G-20 finance ministers pointed out the uneven nature of economic growth worldwide and the potential for excessive risk in financial markets to build up. A speech from ECB President Mario Draghi before the European parliament at 11:00 may be closely watched. FTSE 100 down 43 to 6,795.