By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch FTSE 100 on track for weekly
rise
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.K. stocks drifted lower Friday, with
mining stocks hurt as prices for metals sank.
However, Tesco PLC proved to be a stand-out gainer, following a
ratings upgrade for the embattled supermarket chain.
The FTSE 100 shed 0.1% to 6,631, but remained on track for a
weekly rise 0.9%. Although the recent slide in oil prices is
pressuring oil majors "it is also providing a bit of a tonic to a
host of other stocks and this is giving a boost to market sentiment
as a whole," said Bill McNamara, technical analyst at Charles
Stanley, in a Friday overview. He added that the benchmark "still
does not look especially overbought."
Shares of Carnival PLC (CCL) were off 1% on Friday, but were
still in line for a more than 3% weekly rise, with that gain coming
as oil prices hovered around four-year lows, a likely benefit for
the cruise-ship operator.
January Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange managed to
turn higher on Friday to above $79 a barrel but the continuous
contract was down 5% for the week, facing a eighth consecutive run
of losses.
Shares of Tullow Oil were down 0.5%, paring declines. BP PLC
(BP) lost 0.9% but BG Group PLC turned up by 1%.
Anglo American PLC fell 1.2% and was among the miners whose
shares dropped alongside prices for gold, copper and other
dollar-denominated metals that felt the pinch from the rise in the
U.S. dollar (DXY). Fresnillo PLC was off by 1.2%, BHP Billiton PLC
lost 1% and Rio Tinto PLC sagged 0.8%.
But Tesco bounced up 2% following a late-Thursday ratings
upgrade to overweight from neutral by HSBC, which said, in part, it
believes "the right steps are being taken to position Tesco for the
long term, building on its scale, skills and assets." Tesco in
September first revealed it likely overstated its first-half profit
forecast by 250 million pounds ($391 million) because of an
accounting error. In October, it said the overstated profit was
GBP263 million.
Also higher were shares of Aggreko PLC , up 3% to top the FTSE
100 after the temporary-power provider said underlying trading
profit in 2014 will be similar to that in 2013. Third-quarter
results were in line with expectations.
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