FTSE 100 Live: Blue-chips set to open higher as soft US inflation cools rate rise bets

FTSE 100 down 9 points at 10,763

Miners continue their slump

8.30am: Index slips into red as miners drag

The FTSE 100 is down 9 points, held back by another leg lower in the mining sector.

Antofagasta is the worst of it, off 3.5% at 3,625p, with Glencore down 2.2% at 548.3p and Fresnillo 2.1% lower at 2,810.5p.

Anglo American and Endeavour Mining are both around 2% weaker.

That takes the sector's decline to roughly 8% since Wednesday lunchtime, which sounds dramatic until you look at what came before it.

The world's 50 biggest listed miners added $206 billion of market value in the first seven sessions of August, $108 billion of that from gold and silver names alone.

Gold is now heading for a weekly loss, down 0.5% at $4,326.75 an ounce, having twice been rebuffed at $4,500.

Copper has come off the boil too, dipping below $6.55 a pound as Chinese buyers baulk at the price.

Profit-taking, then, rather than anything more sinister.

Ahead of the open London's blue chips are tipped to open around 27 points higher on Friday, riding a wave of overnight optimism.

The tone was set on Wall Street, where the S&P 500 closed at a record and the Nasdaq hit a two-month high.

The trigger was July's producer price index, a gauge of factory-gate inflation, which slowed sharply and came in below forecasts.

That followed Thursday's soft consumer price reading and a jobs report showing 23,000 positions were lost in July.

Traders now see a below-40% chance of a September rate rise from the Federal Reserve, down from 50% last week.

Asia took the hint, with Seoul climbing more than 1% as chipmakers SK hynix and Samsung extended their recovery.

Tokyo also advanced, with SoftBank, the techno...