AQP leads miners higher

European equities markets ended higher Friday, with miners up in London.

The FTSE 100 added 0.48 percent to 5,011.47 in London, while the FTSE 250 was up 0.9 percent to 9,207.89.

Aquarius Platinum (LSE: AQP) led a mostly higher mining sector with a gain of 5.19 percent, while gold and silver miner Fresnillo (LSE: FRES) was up 5.07 percent and Lonmin (LSE: LMI) gained 3.24 percent.

Broker Man Group (LSE: EMG) turned in the best performance on the 100 with as it added 8.89 percent, while Home Retail Group (LSE: HOME) led decliners on the index for the second day in a row and had the worst day in the sector as it dropped 4.72 percent.

The retail sector was mixed, with Marks & Spencer (LSE: MKS) adding 3.21 percent for the biggest gain in the sector.

Luxury fashion group Burberry (LSE: BRBY) dropped 1.88 percent on the session.

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 was up. 0.57 percent to 993.97 while the Dax added 0.52 percent to 5,624.02, the CAC-40 was 0.78 percent higher to 3,734.89 and the IBEX gained 0.99 percent to 11,452.6.

Steelmaker Salzgitter (FWB: SZG) led gainers on the Dax as it added 5.31 percent while ThyssenKrupp (FWB: TKA) was up 3.1 percent and ArcelorMittal (Euronext: MT) gained 5.6 percent after Goldman Sachs raised target share prices for all three components of the steel sector and reaffirmed its ratings of “buy”, “hold” and “conviction buy” on Salzgitter, TK, and ArcelorMittal respectively.

Motor vehicle manufacturers were higher on the Dax as Volkswagen (FWB: VOW) added 4.35 percent and truck maker Man (FWB: EDF1) gained 3.29 percent.

Retailer Metro (FWB: MEO) was the biggest loser on the Frankfurt index with a decline of 1.55 percent.

Over on the CAC-40, Air France-KLM (Euronext: AF; NYSE: AKH) was the biggest winner of the session as it added 6.58 percent, while IT services group Cap Gemini (Euronext: CAP) dropped 1.36 percent for the worst performance of the day on the index.

Most markets in the Asia-Pacific region were higher Friday, but in Tokyo the Nikkei 225 was down 0.66 percent to 10,444.33 and the Topix index dropped 0.84 percent to 950.41, although the Mothers market managed a gain of 0.75 percent to 463.19.

The Nikkei was down on strength in the yen and after new data showed that Japan’s gross domestic product grew by only 0.6 percent in the second quarter, less than had been anticipated.

Also sending the Nikkei lower was a sell-off in connection with the settlement of September Nikkei futures.

Carmakers were lower as Honda Motor (TYO: 7267) fell 2.1 percent on reports that it will only produce a million cars in Japan and move most of its manufacturing overseas in order to cut costs, while Toyota (TYO: 7203) was down 1.8 percent on the session.

Other exporters managed to see gains despite a stronger yen, as consumer electronics giant Sony (TYO: 6758) added 0.6 percent and Tokyo Electron (TYO: 8035) gained 0.8 percent on the news that US semiconductor sector components Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) and ASML (NAS: ASML) both raised their forecasts for sales.

The Taiex added 0.07 percent to 7,337.14 while the Sensex was up 0.29 percent to 16,264.3, the Kospi was 0.43 percent higher to 1,651.7, and the Hang Seng gained 0.44 percent to 21,161.42.

In Australia, the Sydney Ordinaries added 0.5 percent to 4,596.3 and the S&P/ASX200 was up 0.55 percent to 4,596.1, while in China the Shanghai Composite gained 2.22 percent to 2,989.79.

The Straits Times Index dropped 0.04 percent to 2,681.03.

Wall Street was lower in midday trade as the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.4 percent to 9,588.79 at just past 12:30 p.m. in New York while at the same time the Nasdaq Composite had fallen 0.52 percent to 2,073.22 and the S&P 500 was 0.34 percent lower to 1,040.61.

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