U.K. stocks fell for the fourth time in five sessions on Thursday, tracking wider losses across Europe, where a bond- market rout and uncertainty over Greece's bailout talks hit investor confidence.
The FTSE 100 index slid 1.3% to 6,857.91, more than erasing a 0.3% gain logged on Wednesday.
Topping the list of decliners, shares of Johnson Matthey PLC (JMAT.LN) dropped 4.5% after the specialty chemicals company reported a drop in full-year revenue (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/johnson-matthey-profit-lifted-by-metals- unit-sale-2015-06-04).
Mining firms were also sliding, tracking losses for most metals. Shares of Anglo American PLC (AAL.LN) fell 2.9%, BHP Billiton PLC (BLT.LN) (BHP.AU) (BHP.AU) gave up 2.4%, and Glencore PLC (GLEN.LN) skidded 2.3%.
More broadly, the weakness in London came on the back of a renewed bout of bond market volatility in the eurozone, with German 10-year bund yields inching close to 1%. The rising yields came after the European Central Bank on Wednesday raised its inflation forecast for 2015 and said investors have to get used to periods of higher volatility.
Anxiety over Greece's attempt to hammer out a deal with international lenders also dented investor confidence on Thursday. A crunch meeting between Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday night failed to result in an agreement, with the Greek leader saying only his country's own proposal is "realistic and constructive". The lenders had offered the Greeks a reform plan that would clear the roadblock for the next tranche of bailout money, while the Tsipras-led government had drafted its own proposal.
"The discussions will continue," Tsipras said in a post to Twitter after the meeting.
Tsipras and the creditors, however, did agree on some aspects (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/greece-to-make- counter-offer-on-bailout-deal-to-creditors-2015-06-04) of a deal, European officials said Thursday.
Greece faces a 303.3 million-euro ($340.84 million) repayment to the International Monetary Fund on Friday, which it is struggling to make without more bailout cash. Read: Greece's looming debt repayments in a pair of charts (http:// www.marketwatch.com/story/greeces-looming-debt-repayments-in-a-pair-of-charts-2015-06-02)
In the U.K., the Bank of England, as expected, kept its key interest rate at 0.5%, where it has stood since March 2009. It didn't make any changes to its 375-billion-pound ($574.51 billion) asset-purchase program.
The pound traded at $1.5416, down from $1.5339 late Wednesday in New York.
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
