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Thomas Cook, British Airways drag on London
FTSE 100 down 0.9%; light sweet crude-oil futures advance, miners firm
By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
Last Update: 4:32 AM ET Aug 21, 2008
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Tour operator Thomas Cook and airline British Airways fell in London on Thursday, pressured by another uptick in light sweet crude-oil prices.
The U.K. FTSE 100 index fell 0.9% to 5,324.80, in line with losses around the rest of Europe. Read more on Continental European stocks.
U.S. shares ended higher on Wednesday but stock futures were pointing to a lower open on Thursday. See Wednesday's U.S. Market Snapshot.
Thomas Cook shares dropped 4.4%, while British Airways shares fell 3.3% as crude-oil futures rose 98 cents to $116.54 a barrel.
Higher oil prices can result in increased pressure on household budgets and less spending on clothes, furniture, holidays and even houses.
Mortgage lenders lost ground, with shares of one of the biggest lender, HBOS , down 2.9%.
Other banks were also under pressure amid worries that credit defaults will rise, with HSBC Holdings HBC down 2.1% and Royal Bank of Scotland also 2.1% lower.
Still, homebuilders were having a better day.
Shares of one of the biggest builders, Persimmon , rose 5.4%, having dropped 75% in a year.
The firm's first-half net profit fell 87% to 26.4 million pounds ($49.1 million) after it took a 15 million pound restructuring charge as well as land write-downs and other costs of 49 million pounds. Revenue dropped 34% to 998.4 million pounds after it sold 5,501 new homes in the period, down from 8,002 a year earlier.
"The market has stabilized in recent weeks and is no worse than it was in the second quarter, but that still means the forward order book is close to 40% lower year-on-year, with cancellation rates running at 33%," said Merrill Lynch analyst Mark Hake.
Other homebuilders moving higher included Barratt Developments , up 3.8%, and Taylor Wimpey , up 5.5%.
Miners up
Miners were also having a good day, with Eurasian Natural Resources up 4.5% after it said that its first-half net profit jumped to $1.3 billion, from $381 million a year ago, with revenue up 85.5% to $3.4 billion.
"Whilst benefiting from strong commodity prices, we managed to contain costs across our operations," the miner said. Record ferroalloys prices are expected to hold for the rest of the year and a very strong performance is expected in the second half of 2008, the company added.
Elsewhere in the sector, shares of Rio Tinto rose 1.6%, while shares of Xstrata climbed 1.5%.
Turning to oil and gas and shares in Imperial Energy rose 5.5% to 1,215 pence.
The Hindustan Times reported Thursday that ONGC Videsh has made a non-binding offer to buy a stake in the firm.
Imperial Energy said earlier in the month that it had received another approach from a potential bidder. In July, the firm said that it was in talks over a possible offer at 1,290 pence per share.
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