FTSE dragged down by miners

The main fallers were all from the mining sector with Antofaqasta down 3.5% and Xstrata dropping 3.48% at the bottom of the heap. Meanwhile at the top of the table, oil company BP was up 1.94% to 605.00 on the news the oil price could be reaching a record high. There was also good news for Northern Rock with its shares up 1.74% on the back of take over speculation. Despite a stronger opening for the US yesterday, a poor showing from technology stocks including Apple and Google led to the US market falling by the close of play. The NASDAQ composite was hit particularly hard falling 1.66%...