Commodity stocks were once again nursing their wounds from the decline in global demand today with shares in Antofagasta and Tullow Oil tumbling on plunging profits.

Africa-focused oil explorer Tullow was the biggest dud among top stocks, shedding 40p to 1056p as it posted an 81% plunge in pre-tax profits to £34.8 million for the first half of the year on the back of lower prices and a drop in production.

But it had some small ray of sunshine for investors, saying that one of its major wells in Uganda may contain significant reserves of black gold.

Chilean copper miner Antofagasta dived 21½p to 768p as it warned that copper prices are likely to remain volatile for the rest of the year.

Pre-tax profits plunged by 71% to $477 million (£292 million) during the first six months of the year on lower metal prices — a worse drop than had been expected. The FTSE 100 miner has also been hit by rising costs. The price of copper has more than doubled since the start of the year thanks to a recovery in demand from commodity-hungry China, but remains a long way off the heights they hit last July.

Shares in London extended their gains into a seventh day, but only just. The FTSE 100 index of top shares put on 4.59 points to 4921.39 despite advertising agency WPP's dismal results weighing on the index. Sir Martin Sorrell's ad empire dived 26½p to 494p.

Royal Bank of Scotland's research arm stuck the knife into former rival HBOS today about its “disastrous” corporate lending strategy. Lloyds Banking Group, which merged with crisis-struck HBOS, reportedly faces writing off up to £500 million on loans it made to pubs group Admiral Taverns. RBS warns investors to expect more of kind of exposure as the recession drags on and corporate bankruptcies mount. But it is still a buyer of Lloyds, which rose 4.4p to 112.4p.

Marks & Spencer's self-help programme is finally paying off. That's according to Singer Capital Markets, which today raised its target price to 320p for the High Street chain — still below the 342.4p the shares were changing hands for today, 0.1p higher. Singer reckons it is impossible to justify the premium in M&S's valuation compared with the rest of the grocery and retail sector. But it is still is a fan of the new initiatives, including the trial of branded food goods and its meal-for-two for £5 deal and it reckons that M&S's clothing offering is improving. Singer also notes that the lingerie range at M&S is once again clawing customers away from competitors.

In New York, shares on Wall Street hit another record high for the year last night after figures showed home sales are starting to recover and investors were reassured by the nomination of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke for a second term.

This helped US stocks to shrug off a decline in the oil price, with the Dow Jones closing 30.01 points higher at 9539.29. The index had surged above 9600 in early trading but gave back some of the gains.

Discretionary spending stocks received a double boost as data showed consumers are becoming increasingly optimistic and Burger King posted a 16% jump in quarterly profits as its costs dropped.

But sales at the hamburger chain fell for the first time since it listed in 2006 as its fast-food devouring customers cut back on eating out. Revenues fell 2.4% between April to June. The Clown seems to be winning against the King on sales, with McDonald's recently reporting a 4.3% rise in like-for-likes in July. Burger King's shares rose 6.2% to $18.75 while its archrival gained 1% to $56.45.

Crude fell below $72 a barrel as industry figures showed a big rise in crude stocks. This pushed down the titans of black gold, ExxonMobil and Chevron.

In Asia, shares broadly followed New York higher but trading was lacklustre amid nerves over Chinese growth.

In Tokyo, stocks closed at a 10-month high with exporters once again leading the charge on hopes of a recovery in US demand. The Nikkei Average finished up 142.35 points at 10,639.71. Carmakers cheered the increased optimism among American consumers, with Honda Motor putting on 1% and Nissan Motor rising 0.6%. Shares in rival Toyota Motor surged 1.7% as the world's largest carmaker said it would trim production capacity to match sales.

Shares of micro-chip maker NEC Electronics rocketed 8.9% on talk that Hitachi and Mitsubishi may fork out $2.1 billion to help the company in its merger with Renesas Technology.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index rose 10.12 points to 20,445.36.