Sector movers: Miners dragged lower by another sharp fall in copper, base metals
Weaker than expected Chinese foreign trade numbers for the month of April and widespread weakness overnight in commodity prices saw miners buried under a pile of sell orders again.
Overnight, official data revealed that Chinese export growth slowed to a 14.3% year-on-year pace in April, down from 22.3% in March, as did imports, from 26.3% to 18.6% - amid declines in overseas purchases of key metals.
Nevertheless, the outlook was for steady export growth in 2017 thanks to a "relatively bright outlook for the global economy this year," Capital Economics said.
By 1330 BST, three-month LME traded copper futures had in fact rebounded to trade up by 0.8% to $5,585 per metric tonne, alongside modest gains in nickel and zinc, but to little avail for shares of the main miners.
On a related note, on 5 May analysts at Barclays Research told clients the recent 'sell-off' in the red metal was not a harbinger of recession, although they admitted that Chinese data might be in danger of "topping" - but not of turning outright bearish.
Indeed, the broker reminded clients that copper continued to trade well above the levels of 2016. Their expectation was for prices to stabilise in the $2.50 per pound range. A sustained drop to $2.0 would be a completely different matter, they said.
"If inventories rise in Q2, a period of seasonal declines, we would find that strongly bearish and perhaps evidence of a flattened Chinese copper market. So while recent price declines are a worrying sign, more data and time is needed before we think they are evidence of something more severe."
Right behind Mining on the bottom rungs of the leaderboard were Construction and Materials stocks, which one City-based trader attributed to doubts about progress by US president Donald Trump in his push for economic stimulus.
Going the other way, SSE and Drax powered ahead even as strategists at JP Morgan recommended to clients that they reduce the beta in the stock portfolios, in anticipation that market leadership was set to shift towards 'defensive' issues.
Top performing sectors so far today
Electricity 8,617.84 +2.41%
Gas, Water & Multiutilities 6,321.51 +1.66%
Real Estate Investment Trusts 3,100.41 +1.65%
Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 15,556.96 +1.32%
Real Estate Investment & Services 2,750.64 +0.92%
Bottom performing sectors so far today
Mining 13,998.39 -2.12%
Industrial Metals & Mining 2,171.47 -1.54%
Construction & Materials 7,031.43 -1.44%
Forestry & Paper 21,704.29 -1.42%
Industrial Transportation 3,044.82 -1.39%