UKX FTSE 100 Index

By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch

U.K. stocks seesawed Friday as mining shares eased back from Thursday's rally and as investors awaited key U.S. jobs data due later in the day.

The FTSE 100 was down 0.3% at 5,883.82 after moving higher early in the session. The index was looking at a 3.2% decline since last Friday, which would break two previous weeks of advances. It would also be the worst week in about a month.

Miners fall: Mining shares were losing the most following a sharp rises in the previous session, helped by a slide in the U.S. dollar . Weakness in the greenback tends to aid dollar-denominated commodities and related shares.

Miners were "giving up ground as traders who dared bottom-pick over the last three weeks sensibly book some handsome and very welcome 10%-40% profits, following a helpful combination of USD weakness, short covering, technical breakouts and brokers suggesting a bottom for some base metals," said Mike Van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, in a note.

Glencore PLC (GLEN.LN) shares fell 4%, giving back a portion of Thursday's 16% bounce. Standard & Poor's, citing sector challenges, cut the commodities trader and miner's debt rating on Wednesday to BBB-, the lowest level of investment grade.

Anglo American PLC (AAL.LN) shares were down 2.9%, on the back of their 20% leap in the previous session. Iron ore miner Rio Tinto PLC (RIO) (RIO) (RIO) fell 1.9%.

Oil turmoil: Shares in BG Group PLC (BG.LN) picked up 0.2% as the energy company beat expectations for full-year production targets (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bg-group-profit-slips-22-beats-production-target-2016-02-05-3485186). But underlying profit fell 22% in the fourth quarter, as oil prices collapsed. BG is being acquired by Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) (RDSB.LN). Shell shares edged up 0.1% Friday, while those in rival oil major BP PLC (BP.LN) (BP.LN) dropped 1%.

Oil prices on Friday were moving lower, with West Texas Intermediate oil down 0.7% at $31.52 a barrel and Brent crude pulling back 1% to $34.11 a barrel.

Data ahead: The highly anticipated U.S. jobs report is due at 1:30 p.m. London time, or 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. Economists polled by MarketWatch expect nonfarm payrolls rose by 180,000 last month, down from 292,000 in December.

Read: Why a January jobs slowdown may not be a bad sign (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-a-january-jobs-slowdown-may-not-be-a-bad-sign-2016-02-04)

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The event is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. For more information or to RSVP for the event, please email (MarketWatchevent@wsj.com)

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 05, 2016 04:20 ET (09:20 GMT)

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