After eight days of rises - which probably counts as a Santa rally - the stock market seems to be suffering a pre-New Year hangover, with oil companies leading the way lower.
As Brent crude fell more than 1.5% to just below $57 a barrel on oversupply fears and worries about slowing demand, Royal Dutch Shell A shares are down 48.5p to £21.60 while BP has dropped 5.4p to 412.6p and Tullow Oil has slipped 7.3p to 415p.
BG has lost 17.2p to 872.5p despite its partner Petrobras submitting declarations of commerciality for three oil and gas fields in Brazil.
Overall the FTSE 100 is currently down 43.41 points at 6590.10, with investors also nervous about the prospects for the eurozone in the wake of Monday’s call for a snap election early next year. The anti-austerity party Syriza is currently leading the polls.
Bucking the downward trend in a big way is Next, up 275p to £67.90 after a better than expected Christmas update, showing a 2.9% rise in sales in the run up to the festive holiday.
Marks & Spencer has benefited from the positive news, up 2.3p to 485.5p but analyst Nick Bubb said:
Whether the better than feared sales growth and profit guidance from Next reflects the fact that all the High Street discounting wasn’t as bad as it looked or that Xmas spending in general was good is, as yet, unclear.
Also higher were the airlines, on hopes of falling fuel costs after the latest crude oil slide. EasyJet has climbed 19p to £16.61 while British Airways owner International Airlines Group is 3.1p higher at 474.8p.
