Morning markets: Miners lead the FTSE downwards

A fall in mining shares on the back of drops in metal prices led the FTSE down 0.8% to 5,202.85 points in early trading.

This morning, gold, silver, aluminium, copper, nickel and tin all dropped by between 0.1% and 3.8%. In addition Brent Crude was off 1% at $78.72 per barrel. Consequently, miners and oil firms registered four of the FTSE's five most severe falls by 8.30am. Xstrata was off 3.1% at £10.15; Kazakhmys was down 2.8% at £11.62; Vedanta Resources shed 2.4% to £23.59; Lonmin dropped 2.3% to £16.52; and Rio Tinto was down 2.1% to £33.72. The FTSE was not helped by poor US home sales statistics for June, released after UK markets closed yesterday. Keith Wade, chief economist at Schroder...