U.K. stocks were little changed as the U.S. Federal Reserve said it will continue its strategy of buying government bonds to support economic growth, while applications for jobless benefits in the U.S. rose.
Randgold Resources Ltd. increased 1.5 percent after HSBC Holdings Plc recommended the stock. Next Plc dropped 2.7 percent after a U.K. retail-sales index fell.
The benchmark FTSE 100 fell 4.13, or less than 0.1 percent, to 5,965.08 at the close in London. The gauge has rallied 70 percent since its low in March 2009 as the Bank of England purchased 200 billion pounds （$316 billion） of assets to spur the economy. The FTSE All-Share Index also slipped less than 0.1 percent today, while Ireland’s ISEQ Index fell 0.8 percent.
“The data flow driving the market so far hasn’t been too bad and high metals prices are helping the FTSE,” said Yusuf Heusen, a sales trader at IG Index in London. “It seems to have shrugged off the negative news from Japan.”
Federal Reserve policy makers gave their unanimous support to the program to buy $600 billion of bonds through June, indicating that the accelerating recovery continues to need stimulus to reduce unemployment.
The expansion is “continuing, though at a rate that has been insufficient to bring about a significant improvement in labor market conditions,” the Federal Open Market Committee said yesterday in a statement after its two-day meeting in Washington.
U.S. Unemployment
Shares fell after applications for jobless benefits in the U.S. increased by 51,000 to 454,000 in the week ended Jan. 22, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 405,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. The number of people on unemployment benefit rolls rose, while those collecting extended payments fell.
Standard and Poor’s downgraded Japan’s sovereign credit rating to AA-, the fourth-highest level, saying Prime Minister Naoto Kan hasn’t done enough to reduce the country’s $11 trillion debt burden.
“The downgrade reflects our appraisal that Japan’s government-debt ratios -- already among the highest for rated sovereigns -- will continue to rise further than we envisaged before the global economic recession hit the country,” S&P said in a statement today.
Randgold Resources, a producer of metal in West Africa, soared 1.5 percent to 4,809 pence after HSBC upgraded the shares to “overweight” from “neutral.” Aluminum, copper, lead, nickel and tin all climbed on the London Metal Exchange.
BSkyB, Fyffes
British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc, the U.K.’s biggest pay- television provider, advanced 0.7 percent to 762.5 pence. The company said fiscal first-half operating profit rose 26 percent on more clients, beating analysts’ estimates.
Fyffes Plc, the Dublin-based distributor of tropical produce in Europe, gained 2.9 percent to 35 pence in London. The company said it acquired 33.3 percent of Fruchtimport vanWylick GmbH, pending merger control approval from the German Cartel Office. The deal will be added to earnings in 2011.
Next Plc dropped 2.7 percent to 2,028 pence. The U.K.’s second-biggest clothing retailer has lost 5.8 percent since Jan. 18. A U.K. retail-sales index fell for the first time in three months in January and stores expect further weakness next month after the government raised a sales tax, the Confederation of British Industry said.
Retailers saying sales volumes climbed from a year earlier outnumbered those reporting declines by 37 percentage points, compared with 56 percentage points in December, the London-based group said in a report today. That’s the lowest since October. An expectations gauge for February was at 25, signaling stores anticipate sales growth will slow.
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