Investors were surprised Wednesday morning to see some positive news flow out of China. Chinese exports throughout December fell (-1.4%) as expected but not as much as initially feared. It was a day where international markets seemed to fair differently, as positive movements off the back of the Chinese data was slowly eroded by unsettling oil inventory data.

Oil endured a volatile session, initially making up ground only to lose this shortly after American crude inventory data reminded investors that the global supply problem wasn’t relenting. At the time of writing the price of Brent crude oil was $30.68 -0.55%. Earlier in the day most miners gathered towards the top of the index, with BP, Rio, Glencore and Anglo all reaching session highs above 4% but as mentioned these gains tailed off as the session came to a close. BP (+3.95%) and Rio (+1.91%) managed to hold onto these gains better than the rest as Glencore finished the day down 0.18% and Anglo fell even further; down 0.45%.

Sainsburys were amongst the latest of companies to release a trading update today, as they saw like for like sales drop 0.4% in the third quarter of 2015. Sentiment amongst investors with regards to retailers is anything but upbeat as a competitive market and challenging weather conditions seems to have hit the majority of the market. The shares finished the day down 1.39%. Despite this in anticipation of their results out tomorrow, Tesco had another strong day and finished the day up 2%.  Looking at the wider market, the FTSE 100 finished the day with modest gains of 0.54%, although not enough to bring it back above the 6000 mark.

Market rumours speculated that HSBC’s potential headquarter relocation, if it goes ahead, won’t be to the US. An update due next month should clarify if they chose to leave London’s financial district, which at the moment, will likely be for either Paris or Hong Kong. HSBC shares finished the day relatively flat.