Publications
Partners
London - Britain's top share index was down 0.3% early on Friday as strength among banks and miners was offset by falling energy stocks with investors awaiting U.S. GDP data for further signs of economic recovery.
By 0816 GMT, the FTSE 100 was off 12.09 points at 4 619.52, having closed up 1.9% at a 7-month high on Thursday of 4 631.61 on reassuring company earnings.
"We're still pretty positive about the outlook - I think the profits picture is continuing to get better rather than worse. I think there's still considerable valuation support left in the market. It has got more breadth over the last few weeks," said Darren Winder, head of macro and strategy research at Cazenove.
"I think the U.S. GDP figures today will be another confirmation that output fell a lot less in Q2 than it fell in Q1. We've seen that in the UK; I think we'll get confirmation of that for the U.S. later today, and I think we're going to see that in the other major economies," he said.
A Reuters poll of economists showed a median forecast of a 1.5% contraction in the U.S. economy in the second-quarter, on a seasonally adjusted annualised basis, compared with a 5.5% contraction recorded for the first quarter.
British consumer confidence held steady in July as a small deterioration in Britons' expectations of their own finances was offset by a more upbeat view of the economy as a whole, the GfK/NOP consumer confidence index showed.
Banks were the best performing sector on the index, rallying ahead of their first-half results next week.
Barclays and HSBC, which kick off with the reporting on Monday, gain 2.3% and 0.8%, respectively, while Lloyds Banking Group, scheduled to release its figures on Wednesday, adds 0.2%, and Royal Bank of Scotland, which reports on Friday, adds 0.6%.
Against a backdrop of rising metals prices, the mining sector enjoyed a rally.
BHP Billiton, Fresnillo, Kazakhmys, Lonmin and Rio Tinto gained 0.9% to 2.8%.
Anglo American added 1.5% after posting a sharp fall in first-half profit and said it had achieved $450 million of its planned $2 billion in cost savings.
- Reuters
