LONDON (ShareCast) - London’s top stocks have continued to make headway with Wolseley adding over 15% on talk that the building supplies group may sell its US division.

Travel stocks are going well, with Thomas Cook and TUI Travel both posting chunky gains, while banks HBOS, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland are also among the top performers.

Barclays Bank has agreed to sell Barclays Life Assurance Company Limited to Swiss Reinsurance Company for approximately £753m in cash. The sale is expected to be completed by 31 October 2008, after receipt of appropriate regulatory approvals.

Asia-focused bank Standard Chartered posted record half-year profits as it shrugged off the turmoil surrounding the financial markets. Pre-tax profit increased 31% to $2,586m as the group benefited from its strategy of focusing on Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Meanwhile, government-owned mortgage lender Northern Rock reported a worse-than-expected £585m loss in the first half after a rise in the number of customers falling behind with repayments.

Insurer Legal and General advances after reporting a 6% rise in first half operating profit, at the higher end of forecasts, as annuity sales grew. Despite a weaker investment market half year operating profit on a European embedded value (EEV) basis rose to £626m compared with £589m in the first half of 2007.

Crude below $120 a barrel gives a boost to British Airways and the cruise operator Carnival, but sends oil stocks lower. Tullow Oil leads the decline, with BG Group, Cairn Energy, BP and Shell also among the heaviest fallers.

Mining stocks fall back in line with lower metals prices. Kazakhstan’s ENRC and Ukraine’s Ferrexpo post substantial losses.

In the FTSE 250, Shares in Michael Page jumped after the recruitment firm admitted it had received an approach from recruitment firm Adecco.

JP Morgan has lowered its rating on the real estate giant Hammerson to ‘neutral’ from ‘overweight’ on valuation grounds.

JP Morgan has lifted its price target on train and bus operator National Express to 1,164p from 1,153p and kept its ‘overweight’ rating on the stock.

Merrill Lynch has raised its rating on the drug group AstraZeneca to ‘neutral’ from ‘underperform’ and raised its target price on the stock to 2,600p from 1,900p.

UK power generator Drax saw profits for the half year slide due to higher coal and carbon costs. The group said it anticipate its full year EBITDA will be modestly higher than £400m, but still lower than 2007 EBITDA of £50m, reflecting a decrease in margins captured for power sales.

Pre-tax profit for the period fell to £150m from £273m previously, as the increases in average achieved power price and power sold were more than offset by higher coal and carbon costs.

Carpetright said group sales decreased 9.2% in the first 13 weeks of its financial year and warned the difficult conditions are likely to persist for the year. “The trading environment in the UK has become more difficult and we can see this continuing for the rest of our financial year,” said the carpet retailer.

Cookson saw first-half profit rise 45% thanks to its ceramic business and said it expected a strong improvement in its full-year performance.

“For the second half, continued growth in the global production of steel, foundry castings and solar panels should support a further strong improvement in the performance of the Ceramics division, benefiting from a full period contribution from Foseco and from our continuing investment in capacity in higher growth, higher margin areas," it said.

Volatility in the financial markets helped the inter-dealer broker Tullett Prebon lift revenue and profits, though the company added that growth is expected to slow over the second half of the year.

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