Barclays Share News (BARC)

UK markets surged in early trading on Tuesday with traders wasting no time in playing catch up as they returned to their desks following the three-day weekend.After reaching a 13-year high on Wednesday, the FTSE 100 dropped sharply in the latter part of last week on fears of a scaling back of stimulus measures from the US Federal Reserve - after comments from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke - as well as some gloomy economic data from China.However, Senior Market Analyst Michael Hewson from CMC Markets said that stocks were expected to make up for lost ground today following a fairly quiet but positive European session yesterday.Ahead of the open, Hewson said: "The extra day for UK and US markets is likely to have been useful for investors to weigh up and absorb last week's events, and what they mean going forward for their asset allocation decisions in a world where the prospect of open ended quantitative easing from the US is no longer the done deal investors thought it was a few weeks ago, while a Chinese slowdown remains a growing concern."The economic data calendar is looking pretty light for Tuesday with no major releases due out in Europe this morning, though eyes will be fixed on consumer confidence and home-price figures in the States due out this afternoon.Pharmas gains early onDrugs giant AstraZeneca was among the high risers this morning after saying that it will continue to "vigorously" defend the intellectual property rights protecting its asthma medicine Pulmicort Respules. The company is appealing against a US court ruling that the patent protecting Pulmicort from rival drugs in the US is invalid. Sector peers Shire and GlaxoSmithKline were also in demand early on, with the latter being boosted by an upgrade by Deutsche Bank to 'buy'. The broker also lifted its target price for the shares from 1,620p to 1,930p.Wood Group was also higher on news that its PSN business will continue to provide duty holder and asset management services to the Hummingbird Spirit floating storage offloading production vessel, under a new contract extension worth $87m from Teekay. Positive comments from Bank of America Merrill Lynch were helping share prices of a number of retailers this morning after the broker raised its target prices for Sainsbury, Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Dixons, SuperGroup and Darty.Financial stocks were also performing well as markets on the whole rebounded from last week's sell-off. HSBC, Barclays and Standard Chartered were in positive territory, joined by part-nationalised lenders RBS and Lloyds which were both shrugging off downgrades by Citigroup today.Polymer manufacturer Victrex was a high riser on the FTSE 250 after increasing its interim dividend by 15% and beating profit forecasts by 2.0% in the first half.Soft drinks maker AG Barr was also up as it managed to increase revenues by 2.4% in the first quarter in spite of the dismal weather.FTSE 100 - RisersTUI Travel (TT.) 371.60p +3.65%GKN (GKN) 305.00p +2.90%Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,017.00p +2.83%International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 280.50p +2.75%Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 1,376.00p +2.69%easyJet (EZJ) 1,283.00p +2.64%GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,795.50p +2.63%Barclays (BARC) 325.15p +2.57%IMI (IMI) 1,341.00p +2.44%Weir Group (WEIR) 2,349.00p +2.35%FTSE 100 - FallersEurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC) 249.40p -2.12%Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,941.00p -0.94%Rio Tinto (RIO) 2,850.50p -0.58%Glencore Xstrata (GLEN) 330.55p -0.39%Severn Trent (SVT) 2,070.00p -0.05%Anglo American (AAL) 1,556.00p -0.03%FTSE 250 - RisersNew World Resources A Shares (NWR) 114.00p +7.75%Victrex (VCT) 1,739.00p +6.82%Ocado Group (OCDO) 272.70p +3.49%Spirax-Sarco Engineering (SPX) 2,880.00p +3.34%888 Holdings (888) 165.20p +3.12%Mitchells & Butlers (MAB) 396.50p +2.96%Ferrexpo (FXPO) 175.40p +2.93%Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 2,183.00p +2.83%Inchcape (INCH) 564.00p +2.73%Pace (PIC) 256.70p +2.68%FTSE 250 - FallersDunelm Group (DNLM) 860.00p -1.15%Carpetright (CPR) 635.00p -1.01%Menzies(John) (MNZS) 711.00p -0.97%Telecom Plus (TEP) 1,275.00p -0.93%TalkTalk Telecom Group (TALK) 228.00p -0.87%Investec (INVP) 480.40p -0.87%Kenmare Resources (KMR) 31.40p -0.82%BH Global Ltd. GBP Shares (BHGG) 1,244.00p -0.64%Ted Baker (TED) 1,481.00p -0.60%John Laing Infrastructure Fund Ltd (JLIF) 113.50p -0.44%