As the market drifted lower, retailers were in the spotlight after positive August sales figures.
The British Retail Consortium said like for like sales rose 1.3% last month compared to a year ago, the strongest growth since January. Back to school wear and autumn collections dominated the sales, helping lift Marks & Spencer 5p to 433.1p. Despite weaker food sales, Morrisons is also higher, up 4.6p to 174.6p.
But overall the FTSE 100 has slipped another 15.44 points to 6819.33, as uncertainty about Ukraine and - especially - the Scottish referendum continued to unsettle investors.
There has been a mixed performance from Scottish linked shares after Monday's falls, with Lloyds Banking Group recovering 1.05p to 73.25p and Royal Bank of Scotland rising 2.2p to 344.7p. But Weir is down 3p at £26.76 and Babcock International has dipped 8p to £10.73.
A fall in Brent crude to below $100 a barrel - on fears of oversupply and falling demand as economic growth slows - left oil companies lower. Royal Dutch Shell B shares are off 33.5p at £25.07 despite analysts at Societe Generale adding the company to its premium list. BP is down 5.35p at 463.35p while BG has lost 14p to £11.94.
Whitbread has slipped 24p to £43.74p despite a positive trading update, with sales boosted by strong growth at Costa Coffee and its Premier Inn hotels.
Among the mid-caps Cable & Wireless Communications is down 1.1p at 48.95p after UBS cut its price target from 55p to 51p. The bank said:
We update numbers following a change in analyst coverage and the sale of the Monaco business post 2014 results. Our estimates now reflect the potential we see for the new strategy, which focuses on investing in products and the network to improve the customer experience in the remaining Caribbean and Panama divisions. However we remain below company medium-term guidance of mid-high single digit EBITDA growth as we await initial results of the strategy at the first half results in November.
If the strategy delivers we expect equity free cash flow to grow around 2.5 times from 2017 to 2018. This gives scope for CWC to not only cover but increase the dividend by 40% in both 2018 and 2019. However risks remain, as CWC needs to implement network and operational changes and may face intense competition if it takes share from competitors. We also watch Bahamian mobile (around 15% of revenue) where detail on a second player in a current CWC monopoly is expected in late 2014.
We cut our price target as we remove 5.5p of potential upside from CWC carrying out large, accretive acquisitions and include the impact of the new strategy.
