LONDON (ShareCast) - London has fallen back below 5,500 as Wall Street suffered an early three-figure loss, although the leading index is still up as strong commodity prices boost miners and oil plays.

Kazakh miner Eurasian Natural Resources is best of the blue chips, with Antofagasta, Ferrexpo and Vedanta also benefiting from higher metal prices.

Platinum group Lonmin has said the unsolicited offer from larger rival Xstrata is “wholly inadequate” and asked shareholders to reject the bid.

Peer Aquarius Platinum, also boosted by Wednesday’s offer, is up again after reporting a 26% jump in net profit and said it would increase production from its existing mines by about 15% in the year to 30 June 2009.

Oil back above $120 a barrel has helped BP and Shell improve, while Goldman Sachs has upped Dana Petroleum to ‘buy’ from ‘neutral’ and Cairn to ‘neutral’ from ‘buy’.

There’s plenty going on away from the resource sector, with Smith and Nephew in good health after the medical technology firm reported quarterly revenues of $1bn for the first time and lifted second quarter profits by 18% to $174m.

The Bank of England’s decision to keep interest rates on hold at 5% had little impact on the market at lunchtime. Recession fears canceled concerns about runaway inflation during the central bank’s latest two-day policy meeting. Rates have been static for the last four months.

Back in company news, ITV clawed back some of yesterday’s results related losses. It’s too late to sell the shares, but too early to buy, JP Morgan said as it slashed its target price on the broadcaster to 51p from 74p and kept its ‘neutral’ rating.

Barclays reported a better than feared 33% drop in first half pre-tax profits to £2.75bn following a £2.45bn credit crunch related write-down and lower profits from its investment banking and investment management businesses.

"The conditions in the market that we have seen over the course of the last twelve months are as difficult as we have experienced in many years,” said chief executive John Varley. “Although I take some comfort from our relative performance in managing our risks and in generating income, a decline in profit of 33% is acutely disappointing.”

Power station operator International Power's is one of the biggest fallers after it said first half profit from operations rose by a better than expected 19% but warned that second half profit would knocked by extended outages at UK coal power station Rugeley.

Property firm Hammerson slumped into interim losses of £417m from a profit of £367m in the same period last year. The value of its investment portfolio was reduced by £407m in the half against a gain of £323m last year. Adjusted net asset value per share fell 9.9% to £13.92.

Insurer Friends Provident saw underlying profit before tax on a European embedded value basis fall 20% to £211m. On an IFRS basis, underlying pre-tax profit slumped to £13m from £111 in the same period last year.

RSA Insurance, formerly Royal & Sun Alliance, reported a 9% rise in first half operating profit, beating market expectations. The insurer said profit rose to £440m in the half year to 30 June while net written premiums rose 12% to £3.4bn. Analyst expectations for profit were around £422m.

Goldman Sachs has raised its recommendations on Dana Petroleum to ‘buy’ from ‘neutral’ and on Cairn Energy to ‘neutral’ from ‘buy’ to reflect the oil companies’ recent share price movements.

Hotelier Millennium & Copthorne said its half year results were in line with expectations but warned that the rate of growth in Asia had slowed in the last two months.

Bookmaker Ladbrokes reported a drop in first half pre-tax losses but said it remains on track to meet full year expectations.

Independent reinsurance and risk intermediary Benfield saw pre-tax profits for the half year slip 4% as the reinsurance market conditions continued to soften with insurance and reinsurance pricing declining further.

Marketing firm Creston said it was on track to meet expectations as it reported a 5% rise in first quarter like for like revenue.

Altium Securities has lowered its ratings on sports chain JJB Sports, baby products retailer Mothercare and Department store Debenhams on valuation grounds.

It lowers its rating on JJB to ‘sell’ from ‘buy’ with a 101p target price, on Mothercare to ‘sell’ from ‘hold’ with a 345p target price and on Debenhams to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’ with a 54p target price.

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