FirstGroup(FGP)

LONDON (ShareCast) - Leading shares failed to hold on to early gains and closed mixed, with the Footsie barely changed on the day.

Home Retail Group was wanted ahead of results on Wednesday while elsewhere on the high street Carphone Warehouse was buoyed by persistent rumours that Vodafone is interested in its broadband and phones business while US retailer Best Buy is sizing up the mobile phone shops.

Elsewhere in the retail sector Marks & Spencer and Next both had good days.

The soaring oil price made Cairn Energy one of the best performing blue-chip and helped Tullow Oil overcome the loss of its chief financial officer, Tom Hickey, who has resigned for personal reasons. BP and Royal Dutch Shell however were nervously lower ahead of results tomorrow.

HBOS weakened slightly on reports it is planning a £4bn rights issue that will be announced tomorrow, but other leading banks held firm, with Alliance & Leicester the pick of the sector. Royal Bank of Scotland, meanwhile, is set to follow up its £12bn cash call with a cull of 7,000 jobs according to the FT.

Whitbread, which lifted underlying profit by a better than forecast 26.3% to £210.3m in the year to February on revenues up by 11.3% to £1.19bn, was marked higher. Like-for-like sales for the continuing Whitbread businesses rose by 5.7%. "Since the start of the new financial year, two months ago, trading has been encouraging," it said adding that it plans to increase the size of Premier Inn by 50% to 55,000 rooms and to double Costa to 2,000 stores over the next five years.

The blockbuster bid for Wrigley’s by Mars put consolidation in the confectionery business back on the menu, to the benefit of Cadbury Schweppes’s shareholders, who saw the company’s stock improve.

Sainsbury, Morrison’s and Tesco were out of favour as the Office of Fair Trading seems to have declared open season on supermarkets, following up last week’s cigarettes price-fixing investigation with a probe into the pricing of health, beauty and groceries.

Shire nursed a loss today after Credit Suisse cut its view on the stock to “underperform” from “neutral”.

Stagecoach said trading has been strong and above expectations since the bus and train group last updated the market in February. Earnings per share for the year ending 30 April (excluding intangible asset expenses and exceptional items) are now expected to be around 20p, thanks to the performance of the UK rail division and the group's joint venture, Virgin Rail Group.

Processed foods group Uniq's sales for the first 3 months of 2008 were 0.8% up on the same period in 2007, 7.9% including currency movement.UK and Northern Europe met expectations but sales fell in France. The group also announced the closure of its Paignton site at a cost around £20m in capital and one-off costs.

On-line fashion retailer ASOS's sales for the 12 months to 31 March 2008 are up 90% to approximately £81m. Profit before tax is expected to be significantly ahead of market expectations before a one-off charge of £1.1m and slightly ahead after the charge. Sales for the 4 weeks to 27 April 2008 up 80% year on year.

Indago Petroleum has abandoned the Al Jariya well on Oman’s border with Abu Dhabi, sending the Middle-East focused oil and gas explorer’s share price plunging.

An agreement with Leeds City Council to extend the scope of its BSF (Building Schools for the Future) ICT contract has given educational computing specialist RM Group a lift Monday.

Car dealer Inchcape receives a lift from week-end comment in the FT,

Hopes that Microgen will bid for software systems provider Scisys disappeared today after the firm declared it has “no present intention” of launching an offer.

The sale of rights to use its wave technology in the southern hemisphere helped Renewable Energy Holdings cut losses significantly last year.

Data search specialist Autonomy fell out of bed after JP Morgan cut its price target to 855p from 875p after last week’s ‘mixed’ first quarter results.

FTSE 100 - Risers
Home Retail Group (HOME) 251.25p +4.58%
Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 375.25p +4.09%
Kazakhmys (KAZ) 1,725.00p +3.67%
Cairn Energy (CNE) 2,999.00p +3.20%
Whitbread (WTB) 1,227.00p +3.11%
Alliance & Leicester (AL.) 530.00p +3.01%
Cadbury Schweppes (CBRY) 579.00p +2.75%
Amec (AMEC) 778.50p +2.70%
Wolseley (WOS) 542.50p +2.65%
FirstGroup (FGP) 567.50p +2.62%

FTSE 100 - Fallers
John Wood Group (WG.) 434.00p -4.30%
Shire (SHP) 903.00p -3.94%
London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) 1,106.00p -3.32%
Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 289.75p -2.77%
British Energy Group (BGY) 765.50p -2.48%
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 384.00p -2.23%
Cable & Wireless (CW.) 152.10p -2.00%
Friends Provident (FP.) 117.20p -1.84%
Sage Group (SGE) 201.25p -1.83%
Standard Life (SL.) 249.25p -1.58%

FTSE 250 - Risers
Stagecoach Group (SGC) 248.75p +12.43%
Aquarius Platinum (AQP) 787.00p +9.38%
PartyGaming (PRTY) 26.75p +9.18%
DS Smith (SMDS) 140.00p +8.95%
Daejan Holdings (DJAN) 2,819.00p +7.68%
Chloride Group (CHLD) 206.00p +5.64%
Ashtead Group (AHT) 62.00p +5.53%
Brown (N.) Group (BWNG) 235.25p +5.38%
Misys (MSY) 158.00p +5.16%
Regus Group (RGU) 92.75p +4.80%

FTSE 250 - Fallers
Autonomy Corporation (AU.) 836.50p -4.07%
Wellstream Holdings (WSM) 1,314.00p -2.81%
JD Wetherspoon (JDW) 269.00p -2.71%
eaga (EAGA) 130.00p -2.62%
888 Holdings (888) 155.00p -2.21%
Punch Taverns (PUB) 533.00p -2.20%
Cookson Group (CKSN) 693.00p -1.98%
Game Group (GMG) 252.25p -1.85%
Drax Group (DRX) 622.50p -1.58%
Johnston Press (JPR) 124.50p -1.58%

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