London sectors perform poorly

Most sectors were doing poorly in mid-afternoon trading on the London markets.

Mining, for instance, was down for the third straight day. Antofagasta lost 4.8 percent, BHP fell by 2 percent, and Xstrata was down 1.4 percent.

Housing builders were down as well amid worries about sales slowdowns. Wimpy was off 2.4 percent and Westbury was down 4.5 percent.

Taylor Woodrow did even worse, losing 4.1 percent after Citigroup downgraded their stock from “buy” to “hold.”

Fund managers were also down, with Amvescap falling by 3.6 percent, Man Group down 3.2 percent, and Schroders losing 1.8 percent.

Pharmaceuticals and the water sector seemed to be having a better day of it. Among drug makers, AstraZeneca was up 2.5 percent and GlaxoSmithKlein rose 2.3 percent.

Meanwhile in the water sector, Northumbrian Water rose by 3.2 percent and Derwent Valley was 1.8 percent higher.

Overall, this activity had the London markets down in mid-afternoon trading on Friday. The FTSE 100 was down 0.7 percent to 4,910.9 and the FTSE 250 was off by 1.1 percent to 7,083.

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