FTSE 100 closing report July 22

Precious metal miners were among the big risers on the United Kingdom blue-chip index, after the gold price rout showed signs of stabilising.

In company news, chip designer Arm Holdings was the biggest decliner on the FTSE 100, down 6.3% after reporting weaker-than-expected sales on improved earnings that met analysts’ expectations for Q2. AAPL, -1.00% issued a lower-than-expected sales forecast for the fourth quarter. Despite strong results from microchip maker ARM, the company tanked 6.6% after disappointing iPhones sales numbers from Apple overnight.

Apple also “warned it faced a “difficult foreign exchange environment”, as it downgraded its Q4 guidance”, Hewson added.

Arm reported a 32% rise in second quarter profits to £123.9m, helped by increasing royalties from products such as Apple’s iPhone.

Mining blues: The London stock average was also hit by another sluggish day for commodity prices (http://www.marketwatch.com/storyno-meta-for-guid), which in turned weighed on the mining sector. Diversified miner Anglo American fell 6 percent to a 13-year low. BHP Billiton slumped 5.7 per cent after flagging a hit to its full-year underlying profit of up to $650 million, linked to writedowns in its copper business.

Admiral (ADML) rose to the top of the index, up 4.6% at £15.20, while Direct Line (DLGD) was up 1.6% at 362.3p.

BARCLAYS – British bank Barclays has denied receiving an offer of a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) from the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO), relating to a probe into its multi-billion pound fundraisings during the 2008 financial crisis.

Setting aside the uncertainty surrounding Greece’s debt crisis, “the decision between holding bank rate at its current level versus a small increase was becoming more finely balanced”, according to minutes from the July 8 meeting. Futures fell 0.5 percent ahead of the cash market open.