Morning Markets: Quiet start for leading companies

British Telecom and Centrica led the way, gaining 2.51% to 126.40p and 2.07% to 296p respectively, while miners struggled. Xstrata, Vedanta and Kazakhmys were among the worst performers. Kazakhmys was down 1.58% to £14.93 and Xstrata 1.47% lower to £11.75, while Rio Tinto has been cleared by an internal Chinese investigation of wrong doing over the collapse of its proposed tie-up with aluminium group Chinalco. The investigation instead blamed naivety, poor PR and soaring metal prices for the breakdown of the deal. In the US the Dow Jones rose 0.1%, or 12.85 points, to 10,624.69 on ...