FTSE 100 movers: RBS hit by mortgage bond allegations, Vodafone by ML note

UK stocks inched lower on Friday, as investors continued to fret in the run up to Sunday's Greek referendum.

As of 14:30 BST, the FTSE 100 was trading 0.5% lower at 6,595, led by Vodafone after a negative note on the telecoms giant by Merrill Lynch, which told clients it felt the stock's recovery remained "fragile". Analysts cast doubts on the company's ability to compete with converged network operators and were sceptical about capex levels.

Royal Bank of Scotland was in the red on reports that it faces a $13bn claim over allegations regarding its actions before the 2008 crisis. The bank was involved in a long-running case in a US court over how it packaged mortgage bonds and sold them to government lenders overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Standard Chartered and Barclays were also out of favour.

BT edged lower after Ofcom said that it has fined the telecom group’s takeover target EE £1m for failing to comply with its rules on handling customer complaints.

Mining stocks were mostly lower, with heavyweights BHP Billiton, Anglo American, Rio Tinto and Glencore all trading lower, as metal prices dipped across the board and copper suffered in particular. Anglo was also falling on rumours that the miner could cut up to 20% of its workforce at head offices worldwide.

Smiths Group gained after JPMorgan Cazenove reiterated its ‘overweight’ stance on the stock, pointing to close to 13% upside to its unchanged 1,280p price target.

Real estate stocks were performing well, with British Land, Intu Properties and Land Securities all among the risers.

Defence group BAE Systems was making gains after UBS upgraded the stock to ‘buy’ from ‘neutral’ but cut the price target to 510p from 540p.

Risers
Ashtead Group (AHT) 1,080.00p +1.98%
Land Securities Group (LAND) 1,250.00p +1.46%
Hammerson (HMSO) 634.00p +1.20%
St James's Place (STJ) 927.00p +1.09%
Pearson (PSON) 1,228.00p +1.07%
British Land Company (BLND) 809.50p +1.06%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,248.00p +0.95%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 641.00p +0.94%
London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) 2,445.00p +0.74%
Intu Properties (INTU) 315.10p +0.51%

Fallers
Vodafone Group (VOD) 230.35p -2.35%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 1,029.00p -2.33%
Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 176.40p -2.11%
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 261.20p -1.95%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 859.50p -1.94%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 359.30p -1.86%
Smiths Group (SMIN) 1,142.00p -1.72%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,251.00p -1.69%
Anglo American (AAL) 902.90p -1.67%
Barclays (BARC) 262.55p -1.45%