LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Wednesday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Prudential, up 2.2%. The life insurer bounced back having taken a hit on Tuesday from a Bloomberg report that China's foreign exchange regulator tightened restrictions on purchases of insurance products overseas. Societe Generale and UBS said the share price fall for Prudential on Tuesday, when it fell 8.2% to a two-year low, was an overreaction. UBS analyst James Shuck said the life insurer's mainland China sales are mostly regular premium and therefore are unlikely to be materially caught up by the change. SocGen analysts, meanwhile, said the 8.2% drop in the company's share price implies the market are pricing in a 45% "hair cut" on the group's new business franchises across Asia.
ARM Holdings, up 2.0%. Tech giant Apple is reportedly expected to announced a smaller iPhone next month, in an effort to boost its slowing iPhone sales. A news report from Buzzfeed's John Paczkowski said that Apple is planning a product event for March 15. Apple is expected to launch a new iPhone - iPhone 5SE - a 4-inch smartphone that will look a lot similar like iPhone 5S but will sport features from the iPhone 6 and 6S. The new phone will also run on an A9 processing chip and will support Apple Pay. ARM designs microprocessors for Apple and benefits from demand for Apple products, such as iPhones and iPads.
Johnson Matthey, up 0.3%. The speciality chemical company said it remains on track to deliver full financial year results that will meet expectations after reporting a small drop in sales during the third quarter as markets remain challenging for some of its divisions. It said group sales in the three months to the end of December totalled GBP736.0 million, representing a small 1% drop from the GBP745.0 million in sales reported a year earlier.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Hargreaves Lansdown, down 4.4%. The financial services provider reported higher first-half pretax profit and strong net business inflows, although the fund supermarket saw its operating margins come under pressure. Pretax profit rose to GBP108.1 million in the six months ended December 31, from GBP101.9 in the corresponding half the prior year. Hargreaves Lansdown lifted its interim dividend to 7.80 pence from 7.30p. Net revenue increased by 10% to GBP158.8 million and operating margins weakened to 67.9% from 70.7%. Total assets under administration swelled 20% to GBP58.8 billion over the course of the 12 months to December 30, as net business inflows added up to GBP2.77 billion.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Ocado Group, down 4.1%. UBS cut its price target for the online grocery delivery company to 425 pence from 480p, keeping a Buy rating on the shares. UBS said markets appear to be increasingly sceptical that Ocado will be able to find an international partner, but the bank remains confident it will. On Tuesday, Ocado did not announce a new partnership, which it had expected to do by the end of 2015, but said its pretax profit and revenue rose in the year to November 29.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Vipera, up 17%. The specialist digital financial services provider said it has formed a partnership with ExperienceLab, part of Serco Group, to collaborate on next-generation mobile-centric user experience design. Vipera said it will work with ExperienceLab under a worldwide, non-exclusive partnership which will see the pair leverage each other's offerings in their respective markets.
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Johnston Press, up 12%. The newspaper publisher said the study conducted with a view to cutting its pension scheme liabilities is set to result in a reduction. The company said the study is expected to reduce the present value of the Johnston Press Pension Plan by around GBP50.0 million. In addition, following a change to the scheme rules by the trustee, Johnston Press will be entitled to participate in any surplus when the scheme closes. As a result of this, an additional liability of GBP3.0 million will no longer be required.
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Motive Television, up 14%. The television technology company said it has received approval from Apple to make its TabletTV app available to iPhone users. The app allows users to download the Apple TV version of the app, which lets users to watch and record free-over-the air television via a device without a contract or subscription.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Shanks Group, down 4.3%. The waste management group revealed it has struck a deal to sell a non-core financial asset for around GBP30.0 million as it said tough market conditions had continued to put pressure on its business, meaning it expects to miss expectations for the full year. Shanks said it will sell all of the debt and a 49.99% equity stake in the Wakefield private finance initiative project to Equitix, the infrastructure investor. Shanks said the sale is in line with its strategy to actively manage its business portfolio and said it would retain its stake in the Wakefield project.
Petro Matad, down 20%. The oil and gas company said it had suspended its seismic data acquisition at its project in Mongolia and said its drilling plans for the site have been pushed back. Petro Matad said it has completed its seismic data acquisition for Block IV at the project, but will now postpone collecting data for Block V and will start again in May. Due to that delay, it now plans to start drilling two exploration wells at the project in 2017, rather than in 2016, as had been previously planned.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun
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