London open: FTSE falls as sell-off in metals, oil prices continues

(Sharecast News) - London stocks fell in early trade on Monday, with miners and energy names under the cosh as the sell-off in prices of gold, silver, base metals and oil continued.

At 0830 GMT, the FTSE 100 was off 0.3% at 10,195.21, while spot gold was down 4.5% at $4,646.16 an ounce and silver was 6.9% lower at $78.71.

Derren Nathan, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "Mining stocks are likely to feel the heat as metal prices scramble to find a floor. Oil prices are also trending the wrong way for investors in commodity focussed companies. The silver bubble well and truly popped on Friday after lenders upped their margin calls to speculators. That followed Donald Trump's nomination of Kevin Warsh, one of the more hawkish contenders in the race, for the top job at the Federal Reserve bank.

"There's no sign of a silver lining this morning either, with another double-digit decline showing on traders' screens. Gold is following a similar but far less pronounced pattern. In industrial metals, copper has also seen a flight of speculative funds, although here, the long-term demand runway combined with limited new production set to come on stream should provide some support."

Looking ahead to the rest of the week, policy announcements from the Bank of England and the European Central Bank are due, as well as the latest non-farm payrolls report.

The BoE is widely expected to keep rates unchanged at 3.75% on Thursday, while the ECB is also expected to stand pat, at 2.00%. "But with UK unemployment at a four-year high of 5.1%, jobseekers will be hoping that Andrew Bailey's comments will set the scene for further reductions in the base rate," said Nathan.

On home shores, industry research showed that house price growth slowed in December, as the housing market ended an otherwise resilient year on a more subdued note.

According to the latest Nationwide house price index, growth was 0.6%, against November's 1.8% jump. It was the slowest pace of growth since April 2024. The average house price is now �271,068.

Nationwide's research tallies with official data released by the Bank of England on Friday, which showed a surprised slide in mortgage approvals in December. However, despite the softer end to the year, Nationwide said the housing market had proved "resilient" over the course of 2025.

Robert Gardner, Nationwide's chief economist, said: "Even though consumer sentiment was relatively subdued, with households reluctant to spend and mortgage rates around three times their post-pandemic lows, mortgage approvals remained near pre-Covid levels.

"Looking ahead, we expect housing market activity to strengthen a little further as affordability improves gradually - as it has been in recent quarters - via income growth outpacing house price growth and a further modest decline in interest rates."

In equity markets, miners were the biggest losers, with precious metals miner Fresnillo and gold miners Endeavour, Pan African and Hochschild all sharply lower.

Antofagasta, Glencore, Anglo American and Rio all slumped, along with oil giants BP and Shell.

On the upside, consumer goods giant Unilever - a more defensive stock - was the standout gainer on the FTSE 100. Utilities United Utilities and National Grid and healthcare company Haleon also rose.