FTSE 100 Drifts Lower In Cautious Trade

(RTTNews) - U.K. stocks shed ground on Thursday, weighed down by losses in the mining and energy sectors. Despite upbeat earnings and guidance from U.S. chip maker Nvidia, the mood in the market remained quite cautious amid lingering concerns about geopolitical tensions and uncertainty about Fed interest rates.

The FTSE 100 index was down 59.60 points or 0.55% at 10,818.52 about a quarter past noon.

LondonMetric Property, Entain, Autotrader Group, Croda International, Melrose Industries, Games Workshop, Diageo, Haleon, Rio Tinto, Llodys Banking Group, Aviva, Coca-Cola HBC, Unilever, Aviva, Natwest Group and Vodafone Group shed 1%-3%.

Computacenter rallied 4.7%. LSEG and Polar Capital Technology Trust gained 2.2% and 2%, respectively.

Insurer Prudential dropped by about 4% after reporting a slowdown in new business profit growth.

Halma advanced 1.5%, while Convatec Group, Compass Group, Airtel Africa, Whitbread, Relx and Metlen Energy & Metals gained 1%-1.2%.

Data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders Limited (SMMT) showed UK car production fell 10.6% year-on-year to 61,767 units in July, following a 1.3% decline in June, driven by weaker export demand and earlier scheduling of routine summer maintenance shutdowns.