Mining and oil groups are leading the market lower ahead of the Bank of England's midday pronouncements on interest rates and quantitative easing.
The FTSE 100 has carried on where it left off last night, following overnight dips on Wall Street and in Asia, and is down 22.58 points at 5230.57.
With metal prices lower on the back of a stronger dollar and continuing concerns about Chinese demand, miners were under pressure. Antofagasta, which missed its copper production target yesterday, fell 40p to 861.5p while Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation is down 39.5p at 913.5p.
Royal Dutch Shell A shares slipped 42p to £17.33 after a 75% fall in fourth quarter profits on weaker gas prices and a drop in refining margins. The company also said it would freeze its first quarter dividend at the same level as the fourth quarter payout. But BP bucked the trend, up 1.7p to 576p.
Elsewhere Vodafone is keeping its spot at the top of the leading index, up 6.6p at 141.1p. The company said full year operating profit was likely to be at the top end of its expected range of £11.4bn to £11.8bn.
Autonomy added another 48p to £16.41 in the wake of the search specialist's fourth quarter figures yesterday. Even a sceptic like Paul Morland at Astaire Securities seemed less bearish:
Autonomy put on a good performance at the analysts' presentation and the openness of the Q&A was a marked improvement on third quarter. This, together with improved disclosure in the results announcement, shows the company in a better light and the reduced level of spin can only be good news for the shares. Although we continue to believe that an acquisition is imminent and the guidance for the first quarter of 2010 looks low, full year forecasts are likely to edge up and it is difficult to see any catalysts that might produce downside in the shares. We therefore move our recommendation back from sell to hold.
Elsewhere GlaxoSmithKline edged up 5p to £12.22 ahead of figures due out later. But all eyes will be on the Bank of England, which is widely expected to halt its quantitative easing programme after pumping £200bn into the economy following the financial crisis. Owen Ireland at ODL Securities said:
Today's session is a heady mix of corporate and economic releases. In terms of companies, heavyweights Vodafone and Shell report earnings, and looking further afield, we have interest rate decisions from both the UK and the ECB. It promises to be a busy session, and one that could possibly define direction over the coming days.
Manoj Ladwa, senior trader at ETX Securities, added:
A quiet start for stocks this morning as traders await a key interest rate decision at 12 o'clock. The Bank of England sits on a knife-edge as it mulls over what to do next. While rates are likely to remain unchanged, any extension to its quantitative easing programme is likely to fuel inflation, while stopping the spending splurge could tip the economy back into recession.
