Football costs send BSkyB (LSE: BSY) and BT down, while miners continue to slide.
European indexes have been holding steady this week, despite Spanish debt fears. But after news that the country's 10-year bond yields have breached 7% for the first time, with Moody's downgrading them to just one step above "junk", turned things bearish again.
The FTSE 100 (UKX) resumed its decline, losing 45 points in early trading for a fall of almost 1% to 5,440.
Spain's already battered IBEX 35 fell just a modest 16 points to 6,599, a drop of barely 0.2%, though masses of Spanish bad news is already factored into it. But the German DAX lost 0.7% to 6,102 and France's CAC 40 slipped by1% to 3,002.
Blue chips slide
The FTSE 100's slide today was headed by BSkyB Group (LSE: BSY), which fell 54p to 642p, and BT Group (LSE: BT-A), with a drop of 6.2p to 203p, for falls of 8% and 3% respectively. The reason? Both acquired rights to show Premier League football, and the total £3bn price tag was bigger than expected.
Miners suffered again, as the expected slowing of demand continues to bite. Xstrata (LSE: XTA) lost 3.5% in early trading, down 33p to 887p, Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO) fell 27p to 1,043p (2.5%), Anglo American (LSE: AAL) saw a 2.5% drop of 54p to 2,078p, BHP Billiton (LSE: BLT) fell 40p to 1,750p, while Rio Tinto (LSE: RIO) lost 59p to 2,812p.
Fund manager Man Group (LSE: EMG) entered the ranks of the losers again, dropping another 2%. After the morning's 1.7p fall, the shares are now down to 70p, the lowest they've been this year.
Company results
We had a couple of big falls after company announcements today.
Computacenter (LSE: CCC) lost 15% after it warned that significant new investment, needed for the pursuit of new business, is going to affect profits -- the shares fell 54p to 303p.
But there was a bigger faller in Mulberry Group (LSE: MUL), the £1.2bn AIM-listed fashion retailer, which saw 453p lopped off its share price, sending it down 23% to 1560p, despite results coming very close to expectations. But with a company on a price-to-earnings ratio of 40 (now 36), anything short of massive over-performance is all it takes.
An "as expected" interim update from WH Smith (LSE: SMWH) boosted the shares by 12p, or 2.5%, to 484p, and strong results from WS Atkins (LSE: ATK) gave its shares a 3% boost, up 20p to 698p.
Meanwhile, Falkland Islands Holdings (LSE: FKL), which has interests in a number of explorers in the area, announced a new subscription offer that lowered the price by 3.5% to 345p.
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> Alan Oscroft does not own any share mentioned in this article.
