Greece deficit spooks FTSE; Commods, banks fall

Britain's top shares swung into negative territory in midsession trade on Thursday dented by reports of Greece's widening deficit, which sent commodity prices and miners sliding and weakened banks.

At 1048 GMT, the FTSE 100 fell 45.16 points, or 0.8 percent, at 5,678.27, after falling 1 percent on Wednesday.

The UK index echoed falls across Europe after statistics office Eurostat said Greece's budget deficit jumped to 13.6percent of GDP in 2009, almost a full percentage point higher than a government projection of 12.7 percent.

"Credit default swaps on Greece have widened out to over 500 indicating that all's not well over there and that they're going to have to tap into the EU IMF funds very very soon" said Manoj Ladwa, senior trader at ETX Capital. 

For more on the Greek debt crisis click on .

The news sent commodity prices into reverse with investors worrying over the potential impact on demand for raw materials.

Miners, favoured for much of the morning, were lower with Fresnillo, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton,Lonmin and Xstrata off 1.1 to 2 percent.

But Vedanta Resources gained 0.6 percent, helped by Citigroup upping its rating to "buy" from "hold".

Crude CLc1 also fell as news of the Greece situation added to the weight of strong U.S. government oil inventory data overnight.

Royal Dutch Shell, BP and BG Group fell 0.6 to 1.7 percent.

Risk sensitive banks, volatile since fraud charges against U.S. giant Goldman Sachs heightened the potential for austere regulation within the industry, also shed early gains as markets fretted over their potential exposure.

HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays and Standard Chartered were 0.5 to 1.5 percent lower.

Liberty International was among the biggest bluechip fallers, off 1.8 percent as Morgan Stanley downgraded the mall owner to "underweight" from "equal-weight" ahead of a proposed demerger. 

FOOD PRODUCERS SUPPORTS

Food producers were the best performing sector in the FTSE 100, with sentiment boosted by upbeat broker comment and after Nestle, the world's biggest food group, beat fore castswith first-quarter sales.

Unilever rose 1.4 percent, with Panmure Gordon lifting its rating on the consumer goods group to "buy" from "hold".

Elsewhere, Intertek grabbed the top spot on the FTSE 100 leaderboard, up 2.4 percent at a lifetime high after JP Morgan upgraded the testing company to "overweight" from "neutral", saying the stock offers the best growth potential inthe sector.

There was brighter news for Britain's public finance figures, which came in slightly better than economists had expected in March, but still confirmed the 2009/10 fiscal year as the worst since records began after World War Two.

The figures were announced before the second TV debate between the three main UK political party leaders later on Thursday, ahead of the general election on May 6.