LONDON (ShareCast) - Footsie has recovered after a mid-morning slump with banks rallying slightly and miners and oil groups continuing to push ahead.
Shire is leading the pack after an upgrade to ‘buy’ from ‘neutral’ from Goldman Sachs gave it a shot in the arm. The broker kept its target price on the drug group at 1,015p, saying the market is overly focused on Vyvanse at expense of the company’s wider portfolio.
SABMiller is fizzing amid reports that it is to buy a German brewery to lift its market share in the country.
HBOS is hovering around the 275p rights price for its £4bn cash call, but it had been well below earlier in the morning. Lloyds TSB has also suffered amid reports at the weekend that it wants to buy Dresdner Bank, which has been put on the market by Allianz, the German insurance group, for an estimated £6bn.
Barclays and Alliance & Leicester are also nursing losses as sentiment towards the sector fails to improve.
Property giant Land Securities has also tumbled following a downgrade to 'underweight' from 'neutral' at HSBC, taking British Land and Liberty International with it.
A new survey from Rightmove has revealed that sellers are having to get real and cut asking prices as soaring mortgage costs and rising food, fuel and energy bills leave buyers unable to afford record house prices,.
Average asking prices have fallen 1.2% to £239,564 this month, the first time the property website has measured a fall in June.
Oil groups are up on reports that the emergency talks to address the high global oil price broke up in disarray, while more disruption in Nigeria threatens to overwhelm a Saudi pledge to pump more oil. BG and Cairn are prominent.
Crude prices back up at $137 a barrel have caused turbulence at British Airways, while fuel hungry cruises group Carnival is also heading in the wrong direction.
There’s better news at Shire though as Goldman Sachs raised the drug firm to ‘buy’ from ‘neutral’ and kept its target price at 1,015p, saying the market is overly focused on Vyvanse at expense of the company’s wider portfolio.
Miners are also keeping the leading index honest. Stronger metal prices have pushed ENRC, Kazakhmys and Xstrata into the blue.
Compass Group headed northward after SG Securities began coverage on the catering firm with a ‘buy’ rating and a 414p price target, saying it is well-placed to cope with inflation.
Elsewhere, US firm Halliburton has terminated bid talks with Expro and no longer intends to make an offer after the oilfield services group backed a rival offer from a consortium led by Candover worth 10p per share less. Expro replied that Halliburton's offer was inadequate given the delays and risks associated with the deal.
Power generator supplier Aggreko is the 350's best performer. It says trading has been strong in the first half, and it expects revenues will grow by about 25% (22% in constant currency) and profit before tax will be about 40% higher than the prior year. Profits for the full year are also likely to be above current market expectations.
Pump maker Weir forecasts full-year underlying profit will be at the upper end of market estimates. Its performance in the first 22 weeks to May 30 had continued to benefit from strong market conditions, it said in a trading update.
Department store Debenhams is down again on concerns about trading. The share price saw heavy falls on Friday.
Shareholders in troubled SCS Upholstery have seemingly lost their money as it suspended its shares despite a bid approach for the sofa manufacturer. The company says the plans could see very little left for shareholders.
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