By Devik Jain
(Reuters) – London’s FTSE 100 inched lower in choppy trading on Wednesday, dragged down by Experian and Lloyds Banking Group over brokerage actions, although a rise in heavyweight commodity stocks limited the declines.
The blue-chip index slipped 0.1%, with Experian shedding 3.2% to hit the bottom of the FTSE 100 after Citigroup cut its rating for the world’s largest credit data firm to “neutral” on potential headwinds for its U.S. data business.
LLoyds Banking Group dropped 2.7% after RBC double downgraded the stock to “underperform,” saying growth drivers did not appear to be “game-changing”.
Oil majors BP Plc and Shell Plc gained 1.5% and 2.5%, respectively, as oil prices clawed back heavy losses suffered earlier this week. Shell also got a boost after JP Morgan raised its price target. [O/R]
Miners climbed, tracking a rebound in metal prices. Anglo American jumped 2.6% to top the FTSE 100. [MET/L]
Meanwhile, Ukraine reacted with scepticism to Russia’s promise in negotiations to scale down military operations around Kyiv, while British military intelligence said some Russian units suffering heavy losses in Ukraine had been forced to return home.
“Markets will continue to hope that maybe there’s some kind of light at end of tunnel here,” said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, referring to the Ukraine-Russia peace talks.
The commodity-heavy FTSE 100 is tracking a sixth straight quarterly gain, buoyed by higher oil and gas prices, while the FTSE 250 is set for its first quarterly decline since March 2020 amid rising concerns about a dent to economic growth because of surging inflation.
“Rising oil prices has been a big driver, but it is a rare streak of strong performance here from the index which has struggled quite a bit in many ways,” Beauchamp said, referring to the FTSE 100.
The domestically focussed mid-cap FTSE 250 index was down 1.3% after surging 2% on Tuesday.
Among other stocks, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc rose 4.4% on stronger full-year profit forecast.
(Reporting by Devik Jain in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V and Subhranshu Sahu)
