* FTSE down 0.3 percent
* Miners follow metals prices down
* Rolls-Royce falls as Quantas grounds jets for longer
By David Brett
LONDON, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Miners led Britain's top shares lower on Monday as metal prices eased, and with strike uncertainty hitting Xstrata and Anglo American, while African Barrick Gold was weighed on by a broker downgrade.
By 1147 GMT, the FTSE 100 was down 16.54 points, or 0.3 percent, at 5,858.81, having hit a 29-month closing high on Friday after the U.S. Federal Reserve committed on Wednesday to stimulating growth by pumping another $600 billion of new money into the U.S. economy.
"Mining stocks eased back from Friday's levels, underlying metal prices edged lower and the dollar posted muted gains, dragging the mining sector away from last week's highs," Giles Watts, head of equities at City Index, said.
A strike by union workers at the world's third biggest copper mine, Chile's Collahuasi, headed into a fourth day on Monday with no visible impact on output yet as wage talks remained stalled.
The union has vowed a long strike at the mine, which produces 535,000 tonnes a year, or 3.3 percent of the world's mined copper and is owned by Xstrata and Anglo American.
Xstrata and Anglo American were down 1.4 and 1.5 percent respectively.
African Barrick Gold shed 2.6 percent after Goldman Sachs downgraded its rating on the shares to a "sell" from "neutral", and reduced its earnings estimates after recent cuts to the firm's production guidance.
Eurasian Natural Resources, bucked the weaker sector trend, however, climbing 0.6 percent ahead of its third-quarter production report on Thursday.
Energy stocks declined in tandem with a fall in the crude price. Tullow Oil dropped 1.2 percent as Goldman Sachs cut its rating on the stock to "neutral" from "buy".
Negative broker sentiment also put pressure on Scottish & Southern Energy, down 1.8 percent, with Nomura cutting its rating on the utility to "reduce" from "neutral".
ENGINE WORRIES
Aero-engine maker Rolls-Royce dipped a further 0.6 percent as Australia's Qantas Airways grounded its Airbus A380 fleet for at least three more days while it investigated oil leaks that might have caused the engine explosion on a Sydney-bound flight last week.
The incident has rattled the global aviation industry, which is recovering from heavy losses during the global economic downturn, and has been damaging for Rolls-Royce, its shares having dropped nearly 10 percent.
On the upside, satellite operator Inmarsat rose 4 percent after beating Q3 earnings expectations.
Invensys gained 2.3 percent as Credit Suisse joined a crop of brokers who have recently raised their target prices on the engineering group.
"We've had a quiet start this morning, a lot of good news seems to be out of the way with (the Federal Reserve's new round of quantitative easing) QE2 and non-farm payrolls last week," Manoj Ladwa, senior trader at ETX Capital, said.
"The market looks relatively overbought at the top of the trading channel. We could see some money being taken off the table," he said.
U.S. stock index futures pointed to a slightly lower open on Wall Street on Monday, with no major economic data due for release. (Editing by Greg Mahlich)