FTSE 100 Dips Below 6000 On Brexit Woes

(RTTNews) - U.K. shares hit a fresh three-month low on Tuesday as Brexit woes kept investors on tenterhooks ahead of key central bank meetings.

Two ICM polls, one online and one conducted by telephone, showed on Monday that Britain appears poised to leave the European Union with just over a week to go before referendum day.

The British pound hovered near a two-month low and yields on the 10-year government debt of Germany dipped below zero for the first time ever, reflecting growing anxiety over the prospect of the U.K. exiting the European Union.

The benchmark FTSE 100 was down 78 points or 1.29 percent at 5,967 in midday trading after declining 1.2 percent the previous day.

Miners Anglo American and Glencore fell 2-3 percent while energy giants BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell lost over 1 percent each.

Rio Tinto Plc shares dropped 1.3 percent. The Anglo-Australian mining giant announced that Rio Tinto Finance (USA) plc and Rio Tinto Finance (USA) Limited have accepted for purchase of a total of $1.747 billion in debt pursuant to their Any and All Offer.

BHP Billiton dropped 2.8 percent even as a court in Brazil dismissed a $5.7 billion civil lawsuit against Samacro, a joint venture between BHP Billiton and Brazil's Vale.

Among financials, Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered fell 2-3 percent.

Embattled electronics maker Premier Farnell soared 50 percent after Swiss-based Datwyler Holding agreed to buy the company for 165 pence in cash per share.

In economic releases, U.K. inflation remained stable at 0.3 percent in May as rising transport costs were offset by falls in the prices of clothing and food, the Office for National Statistics reported. Economists expected consumer prices to rise marginally to 0.4 percent.

Separately, Eurostat figures showed that Eurozone industrial output rose for the first time in three months during April, aided by a surge in the output of durable consumer goods. Industrial production rose 1.1 percent from the previous month when it fell by revised 0.7 percent.