FTSE dragged lower by mining stocks
London's main benchmark was dragged lower by poor corporate news and lower retail sales in June Reuters

The London market was lower in afternoon trading, knocked by disappointing corporate news and official figures which showed that retail sales slipped in June.

The FTSE 100 Index fell 27.3 points to 6701.7, after high street spending fell by 0.9% last month compared with May, according to the Office for National Statistics. The FTSE 250 Index was 12.2 points lower at 17006.7.

More market reports

Capital economics UK economist Scott Bowman said: "Spending is likely to slow as a result of a drop in confidence following the Brexit vote."

Budget airline easyJet said group sales in the third quarter of its year fell by 2.6% to £1.2bn ($1.5bn, €1.4bn) after it was hit by a mixture of terror attacks in Brussels and Egypt as well as air traffic control strikes which led to 1,221 cancellations in the period. Shares slumped 73p to 1054p.

BT saw its stock fall 9.5p to 380p after millions of BT online customers suffered a second day of outages due to a power failure at the Docklands plant of one of its partners.

In afternoon trading the biggest risers in the FTSE 100 Index were Ashtead Group (+48p to 1176p), Antofagasta (+13.9p to 496.8p), Anglo American (+19.4p to 793.8p), Glencore (+4.4p to 180.6p) and BHP Billiton (+21p to 947.4p).

The biggest fallers in the FTSE 100 Index were easyJet (-73p to 1054p), International Airlines Group (-15.6p to 405.1p), Sky (-27p to 872.5p), BT Group (-9.5p to 380p) and TUI (-17.5p to 932p).

In afternoon trading the biggest risers in the FTSE 250 Index were AO World (+11.5p to 145.9p), William Hill (+22.4p to 297.5p), Ocado Group (+13.4p to 279.3p), Restaurant Group (+13.6p to 318.3p) and Vedanta Resources (+17.5p to 518p).

The biggest fallers in the FTSE 250 Index were Wizz Air (-89p to 1436p), DFS Furniture (-9.3p to 214p), IP Group (-5.5p to 149.9p), NCC Group (-11.3p to 321.7p) and Daejan Holdings (-170p to 5300p).

LON:GLEN