* FTSE 0.1 pct lower by mid-session
* Bank gains offset dragging miners, oils
* U.S. Gross Domestic Product figure eyed
By Kylie MacLellan
LONDON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Britain's top share inched lower
by mid-session on Friday as gains in banks helped offset losses
from miners and weaker oils, while data gave a mixed outlook for
the wider economy.
By 1133 GMT the FTSE 100 <> had fallen 3.22 points to
4,186.99 after sliding 2.5 percent the previous session.
"The FTSE is stuck in a pretty tight trading range now.
Everybody is hoping that it's managing to hang on to 4,000 at
the bottom and there certainly doesn't seem much appetite to
push it above 4,300 at the moment," said Jim Wood-Smith, head of
research at Williams de Broe in Exeter.
Investors eyed the initial reading of U.S. fourth quarter
Gross Domestic Product due at 1330 GMT, which is expected to
show it at its weakest in 26 years.
"Generally the market is pretty featureless and is just
drifting in front of the U.S. GDP number...that's just keeping
people on the sidelines," Wood-Smith said.
Miners broadly fell, weighed down by lower metals prices and
market talk that BHP Billiton <BLT.L> is guiding its forecasts
lower. Shares in the miner, due to report its first half results
on Wednesday, fell 6 percent. The company was unavailable for
comment.
Anglo American <AAL.L> lost 3.2 percent and Xstrata <XTA.L>
slid 4.3 percent.
Rio Tinto <RIO.L> bucked the trend, gaining 4.4 percent
after the mining giant said it will sell its potash assets and
its Corumba iron ore mine in Brazil for $1.6 billion to rival
Vale <VALE.SA>.
Citigroup said it expects further asset sales from Rio Tinto
over coming months. The broker repeated its "buy" rating on Rio
Tinto shares.
BANKS END MONTH POSITIVE
Banks, which have had a roller-coaster ride in January,
looked set to end the month in positive territory as investors
once again decided that the heavy falls they experienced earlier
in the month and last year make them good buying propositions.
Barclays <BARC.L>, Lloyds Banking Group <LLOY.L> HSBC
<HSBA.L> and Standard Chartered <STAN.L> gained between 0.4 and
6.2 percent.
However the UK banking index <.FTNMX8350> has tumbled 19
percent this month after plummeting over 56 percent last year.
"The optimism of the bank revival, those nationalisation
fears receding earlier in the week, that positive trend has been
countered somewhat by the expected onslaught of rights issues
and fundraising," said Paul Kavanagh, head of market strategy at
Killik & Co.
Economic data released on Friday gave a mixed picture about
the broader outlook.
British consumer confidence fell to its second lowest level
on record in January as people fretted about the deepening
recession and grew increasingly worried about their own
finances, a survey showed on Friday. []
But figures showed UK mortgage lending rose more than three
times as fast as expected, while mortgage approvals also rose
unexpectedly, an early indication banks are starting to lend
after billions of pounds of capital injections from the
government. []
Energy heavyweights were mixed as crude prices rose slightly
<CLc1>. BG Group <BG.L> gained 1.7, while Royal Dutch Shell
<RDSa.L> fell 2.4 percent and BP <BP.L> trimmed 0.5 percent.
Private equity group 3i Group <III.L> gained 3.8 percent,
recovering a little from the record low it touched the previous
session on fears that it may be forced to shore up its finances
through a rights issue.
