FTSE 100 movers: Fresnillo loses its shine; Auto Trader rallies

London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.9% at 7,757.59 in afternoon trade on Thursday.

Precious metals miner Fresnillo lost its shine after UBS downgraded the shares to ‘sell’ from ‘neutral’ and cut the price target to 850p from 900p.

The bank said consensus costs are too low, there are risks to silver guidance and the valuation is stretched.

"In our view upcoming production results (25 Jan) and financial results (7 Mar) will act as negative catalysts for the stock," it said.

Miners Antofagasta, Glencore and Anglo American all fell in tandem with copper prices.

Housebuilders Persimmon, Berkeley and Taylor Wimpey were under the cosh after the latest RICS survey showed that house prices fell sharply in December, with weakness forecast to continue well into 2023.

The national house price net balance tumbled to -42 in December, from -26 in December. The balance measures the difference between the percentage of surveyors seeing rises and falls in house prices.

It was the lowest reading since autumn 2010, and well below the -30 analysts had been expecting.

Auto Trader bucked the trend after an upgrade to ‘buy’ at Goldman Sachs.

FTSE 100 - Risers

United Utilities Group (UU.) 1,039.50p 1.41%
Auto Trader Group (AUTO) 574.20p 1.31%
Severn Trent (SVT) 2,778.00p 1.28%
Diageo (DGE) 3,709.50p 1.15%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 3,103.00p 1.06%
Imperial Brands (IMB) 2,045.00p 0.89%
Smiths Group (SMIN) 1,720.50p 0.85%
Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) 1,933.50p 0.76%
Rightmove (RMV) 558.40p 0.61%
Beazley (BEZ) 638.00p 0.55%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Fresnillo (FRES) 894.00p -5.08%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,713.50p -4.78%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 729.20p -4.28%
Persimmon (PSN) 1,401.00p -4.04%
Glencore (GLEN) 558.80p -3.09%
Abrdn (ABDN) 201.10p -3.08%
Anglo American (AAL) 3,561.00p -3.04%
Airtel Africa (AAF) 113.20p -3.00%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 4,233.00p -2.96%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 114.25p -2.85%