LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - The FTSE 100 was down over 0.8% by late afternoon on Monday, with stocks swaying lower as sterling rose to a one-month high ahead of the Supreme Court's decision on triggering Article 50 for Brexit.
Leading the fallers was bookmaker Paddy Power Betfair as it revealed a £40m hit from unexpected results towards the end of the year, including Donald Trump's US election win and several other customer-friendly sporting results.

This was more than analysts were expecting, as rivals William Hill and Ladbrokes reported roughly £20m and £15m impact respectively, though PPB said it still expected underlying EBITDA would come in "around the mid-point" of its November guidance of £390-405m thanks to lower staff costs and marketing savings in the fourth quarter.

Sage might have hoped the launch of its latest cloud accounting software, Sage 50c, would be a fillip for sentiment.

However, investors seem to be lacking confidence in the company ahead of its first-quarter trading update due on Thursday, with its shares down 1.5% having rebounded well from December's six-month low.

Miners gained ground as the dent in the greenback made their dollar-denominated wares cheaper for holders of other currencies. Leading the pack was copper minder Antofagasta, helped by an upgrade to 'buy'from Citigroup, with Anglo American, Fresnillo and Glencore also on the leaderboard thanks to firmer copper and other metal prices.

Analysts noted that copper prices could be set to move significantly higher if supply is curtailed by a likely strike at a mine in Chile this week.

As well as strong gold prices, Randgold announced that its Kibali gold mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo had continued its performance improvement in the second half of the year after a tough first half.

Land Securities was among the climbers, as specialist commercial property investment manager Orchard Street Investment Management completed its acquisition of the Cornerhouse, Nottingham, from the listed group for £65m.

The only purpose-built leisure scheme in Nottingham, the 201,000 sq ft Cornerhouse is anchored by a 14-screen Cineworld and provides 11 restaurants, two bars, a nightclub and a casino.

"Donald Trump's 'America first' inauguration speech has made the 'dollar last' in FX markets. A drop in yields since the inauguration and a survey showing a fourth quarter of falling optimism at British lenders," said analyst Jasper Lawler at London Capital Group.

This saw bank stocks including RBS and HSBC underperform on Monday.

BP was also down despite announcing the expansion of its Thunder Horse rig in the Gulf of Mexico, which is expected to produce 50,000 barrels per day, is 11 months ahead of schedule.

Michael Hewson at CMC Markets said crude oil prices were coming under pressure again after US rig counts last week jumped sharply to their highest level since the beginning of last year.

"If OPEC was hoping that production cuts would help push prices higher, it would appear the US shale producers have other ideas," he said. "For all of OPEC's talk that compliance is being upheld across the board at some point we can probably expect to see some cracks appear."



FTSE 100 - Risers

Antofagasta (ANTO) 791.50p 3.87%
Fresnillo (FRES) 1,448.00p 3.28%
easyJet (EZJ) 1,068.00p 2.30%
Anglo American (AAL) 1,315.00p 1.98%
TUI AG Reg Shs (DI) (TUI) 1,151.00p 1.68%
Land Securities Group (LAND) 998.50p 1.42%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 6,795.00p 1.19%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,325.00p 1.15%
Glencore (GLEN) 321.55p 1.01%
Hammerson (HMSO) 549.00p 0.92%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) 8,315.00p -4.15%
BP (BP.) 487.00p -2.28%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 215.90p -2.26%
Dixons Carphone (DC.) 339.30p -1.65%
AstraZeneca (AZN) 4,249.00p -1.61%
Barclays (BARC) 223.90p -1.54%
HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 668.30p -1.49%
Sage Group (SGE) 634.00p -1.48%
Tesco (TSCO) 195.40p -1.46%
Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 2,191.00p -1.44%

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