The FTSE100 is trading higher by more than 60 points this morning, as the index looks to end a run of 3 successive down days. Since the benchmark closed lower on Friday, sellers have been in control of the market, but today’s rally shows that bulls aren’t willing to throw in the towel just yet.
Miners lead the way higher
The best performing stocks on the FTSE100 this morning come from the mining sector with Anglo American (LON:AAL), Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) and BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) all enjoying strong moves higher. As you’d expect with a move of this size, most stocks are in the green with less than ten in negative territory. Sainsbury’s is the worst laggard out of the blue-chips with shares off by almost 3% after the grocer reported its latest trading update. The release for the supermarket could be described as slightly disappointing with like for like sales excluding fuel declining by 1.1% over the 16 weeks to 24th September. The drop in the price of food is attributed as a driving factor for the contraction, and despite the supermarket still managing to report like-for-like transaction growth across all channels and an increase in total volume the stock has reacted adversely to the announcement.
No agreement in Algeria
With representatives of OPEC members currently in Algeria after attending the International Energy Forum, some informal talks are expected to be taking place. However it appears that once more the organisation will fall short of reaching an agreement, with the Saudi oil minister, Khalid Al-Falih, saying yesterday evening that he doesn’t see a deal being done. The main issue appears to lie with Iran, as the country is reluctant to curb its output until it has ramped up production back to pre sanction levels. Mr. Al-Falih said that he will meet with Russia in October to further discuss some possible collaboration and that a freeze may be possible in November at the cartel’s scheduled bi-annual meeting. Brent Oil currently trades pretty much flat on the day ahead of the weekly DOE inventory release this afternoon at 15:30, with last night’s API equivalent showing a drawdown of 0.75 million barrels.