LONDON (ShareCast) - Finance plays and a big performance from London Stock Exchange carried the blue chip index back above 5,500, while recent laggards also found friends.

Tuesday night’s rally in the US gave Britain’s banks a mid-week boost. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said troubled investment banks may get more time to tap into the Fed’s emergency funds.

Lloyds TSB, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered took off, while insurers Legal & General, Aviva and Old Mutual also prospered.

Even the sector’s whipping boys received a reprieve, with Alliance & Leicester reacting well to the appointment of former Ulster bank man Alan Gillespie as its new chairman, while Bradford & Bingley also jumped on reports that its main shareholders are firmly committed to its rescue.

London Stock Exchange stayed ahead of the chasing pack after revealing first quarter revenue rose 8% to £178m. Its dark pool trading joint venture with Lehman Brothers, to be launched in the first quarter of 2009, is expected to be profitable in the first year of operation.

Buyers also returned to hard-hit Carphone Warehouse, troubled building supplies group Wolseley and broadcaster ITV, sending the trio towards the top of the pile.

Oil plays fared badly though, with the crude price stuck below $138 a barrel following recent falls. Shell, Cairn and BG finished in the bottom 10.

Elsewhere, Tullow Oil estimates its Jubilee field in Ghana could hold as much as 1.8bn barrels and will start production in 2010. It added that group working interest production for the first half of 2008 averaged 70,550 boepd, 1% higher than 2007. Sales volumes for the period averaged 60,000 boepd.

WPP fell before recovering later on, as the advertising giant went hostile with a £1.08bn cash and shares bid for market research group Taylor Nelson. The offer counters a nil-premium merger agreed with Germany’s Gfk, who responded by terminating its proposal. It intends to opt instead for a straight all-cash offer for TNS.

Private equity firm 3i said the mid-market remained healthy in the second quarter of 2008, providing both investment opportunities and chances to realise investments.

Housebuilders are axing more jobs, with Redrow and Bovis both set to shed 40% of their staff. Bovis is to cut its interim dividend by 75% to 5p to counter what it says is the worst market backdrop it has seen for many years.

Investors have reacted favourably to the round of job cuts and cost reductions, with bargain hunters keen to grab shares in Barratt Developments, Taylor Wimpey, Berkeley Group and Persimmon.

Also hitting the recovery trail after recent heavy losses were care home group Southern Cross and price comparison web-site Moneysupermarket.com. Private equity buyers are rumoured to be sizing up Southern Cross.

Multi-utility group Telecom Plus reports "exceptionally good trading" in the first quarter to June with turnover, profits, customer numbers, new services and new distributor recruitment all running substantially ahead of last year.

Insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor posted lower full year profits but expects a recovery this year as the impact of the credit crunch sends more firms to the wall.

In House Group shot up after the property trading company confirmed that it has received an approach from a third party that may lead to an offer being made for the company.

Sterilisation and infection control company Synergy Healthcare said all four of its divisions have traded in line in the company’s first quarter with the trends set in the previous year.


FTSE 100 - Risers
London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) 740.00p +10.28%
Carphone Warehouse Group (CPW) 206.75p +7.96%
ITV (ITV) 43.00p +7.23%
Lloyds TSB Group (LLOY) 304.75p +6.65%
Wolseley (WOS) 317.25p +6.46%
Legal & General Group (LGEN) 101.50p +5.40%
Prudential (PRU) 546.00p +5.30%
Barclays (BARC) 293.25p +5.11%
Xstrata (XTA) 3,840.00p +5.06%
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 686.00p +5.05%

FTSE 100 - Fallers
John Wood Group (WG.) 437.75p -2.67%
Thomas Cook Group (TCG) 202.25p -1.94%
International Power (IPR) 431.75p -1.76%
Petrofac Ltd (PFC) 697.50p -1.76%
British Energy Group (BGY) 716.00p -1.51%
BG Group (BG.) 1,179.00p -1.34%
Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 1,954.00p -0.86%
Cairn Energy (CNE) 2,774.00p -0.79%
Smiths Group (SMIN) 1,053.00p -0.66%
G4S (GFS) 197.90p -0.55%

FTSE 250 - Risers
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 54.00p +38.46%
Bradford & Bingley (BB.) 43.25p +27.21%
Southern Cross Healthcare Group (SCHE) 100.00p +18.69%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 30.25p +16.35%
Yell Group (YELL) 62.00p +13.24%
Bellway (BWY) 434.75p +13.22%
Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) 274.50p +10.69%
Trinity Mirror (TNI) 81.00p +10.20%
Galiform (GFRM) 38.25p +9.29%
Dairy Crest Group (DCG) 354.00p +9.01%

FTSE 250 - Fallers
Hochschild Mining (HOC) 319.75p -4.91%
Halma (HLMA) 196.25p -3.68%
Game Group (GMG) 250.00p -3.66%
Debenhams (DEB) 34.75p -3.47%
International Ferro Metals (IFL) 92.00p -3.41%
888 Holdings (888) 136.75p -3.36%
Dana Petroleum (DNX) 1,581.00p -3.12%
Wincanton (WIN) 288.50p -2.78%
Wellstream Holdings (WSM) 1,226.00p -2.70%
Premier Oil (PMO) 1,433.00p -2.65%

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