Barclays Share News (BARC)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers on the main London indices midday Friday.

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FTSE 100 - Winners

Prudential, up 3.2%, is the biggest riser on the FTSE 100. Shares in the insurance group have been boosted by an upbeat statement from rival AIA overnight, as well as positive Chinese growth data. The combination of the AIA statement and the Chinese growth numbers "meant that Prudential would have a good day", says Panmure Gordon analyst Barrie Cornes.

Whitbread, up 1.8%. The company has seen its share price climb after Exane BNP said it was raising its target price to 3,800 pence from 3,500p, maintaining an Outperform recommendation.

United Utilities is up 1.2% after Credit Suisse increased its recommendation to Neutral from Underperform.

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FTSE 100 - Losers

William Hill, slipping, 3.9%, is the biggest faller on the blue-chip index. Shares are down after the bookmaker received a ratings downgrade from JPMorgan Cazenove to Underweight from Overweight. The shift of online gambling to mobile presents a problem of how to cross-sell from sports to gaming, says JPMorgan, given mobile-gaming development is well behind mobile sportsbook development. JP Morgan also suggests the sector is becoming increasingly competitive and, although it sees long term potential, has reduced William Hill's price target to 400p, from 550p, a huge 27% decrease.

Barclays, down 1.9%. Misconduct by Barclays PLC in relation to the manipulation of Libor “goes further and wider than the regulatory findings”, it has been alleged in court documents that shine a further light on the activities of its traders, according to the Financial Times. Barclays is asking the Court of Appeal to overturn an earlier ruling that Guardian Care Homes, which is suing Barclays over interest-rate swaps, can amend its claim to include Libor-related allegations. In its written submissions, the care-home operator has alleged that disclosure given by Barclays includes evidence that Mark Dearlove, a senior liquidity banker, had received complaints from JPMorgan that Barclays’ dollar Libor submissions were artificially low, the FT reports, setting out quotes from the documents.

Anglo American, down 1.4%. The company's share price is falling after it said its iron-ore production fell significantly in its third quarter. The global metals and minerals mining giant said that iron-ore production at its key Kumba site in South Africa decreased by 24% to 9.47 million tonnes for the three months ended September 30, compared to last year's 12.50 million tonnes. The company said the weaker production was caused by ongoing pit constraints and regulatory safety stoppages at the Sishen mine in Kumba. The Sishen mine is currently operating at quarterly run rate of roughly 8 million tonnes, and Anglo American said it is completing a development strategy at the site to be presented at the end of the year. The company did say that the production of other key metals, including copper, thermal coal and diamonds was strong.

SABMiller is down 0.8%, having been a big mover on the blue-chip index Thursday. The company is re-tracing gains made Thursday after it reported higher sales growth over the three months to September 30. Share price also has been hit by Numis downgrading the company to Add from Buy, lowering its target price to 3,500 pence from 3,700p and revising down its 2014 earnings per share forecast by 1% after the company cut its own 2013 EPS forecast to 237.2p, from 238.7p, due to accounting rule changes. The brokerage noted weakness in some of the brewer's high margin countries like Columbia, which has been hit by social unrest and faces elections later this year. Volumes also were down 7% in the Czech Republic and 10% in Poland, two of SABMiller's most important markets.

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FTSE 250 - Winners

De La Rue climbs 2.3% after Numis upgraded the company to Add from Hold, slightly increasing its price target to 1,098p. The maker of bank notes is now known to have secured the delayed bank-note printing orders that had prompted profit warnings from the company in the last full year, says Numis. With De La Rue already printing about one billion bank notes per year for the Bank of England, the expectation is that the company will win the contract to print the new UK plastic notes, especially given De La Rue's recent investment in polymer substrates. There is one other producer of plastic notes, based in Australia. A decision on the contract from the Bank of England is due in December.

Spectris is up 1.2% after releasing an interim statement, despite guidance that earnings would be at the bottom end of the forecast range. The supplier of precision instruments said that third quarter sales were up by 5%, with 1% of that coming from foreign exchange. This represents a "solid performance", says Jefferies analyst Andy Douglas. The management statement is conservative, saying full-year earnings are expected to be "around the lower end of the range of market expectations". "We are reasonably relaxed with this outcome", says Douglas. The group's long-term prospects are very appealing and the merger and acquisition pipeline is healthy, says Jefferies. The bank reiterates a Buy rating on the stock with a price target of 2,265.00.

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FTSE 250 - Losers

Cairn Energy, down 0.9%, is re-tracing gains made Thursday. The company's shares traded higher Thursday after it said that, with regards to its frontier exploration programme, it expects to start operations shortly on its part-owned offshore Morocco drilling programme, where a multi-year, multi-well exploration campaign to target a total 4.0 billion barrels of oil equivalent resource is underway. Having seen its share price increase by 4.9% Thursday, the company has a long way to fall before reached pre-announcement levels.

RPS Group is down 0.7% as investors react negatively to the news that the energy resources company has acquired OEC, a Norwegian company providing project management to the growing North Sea oil industry. The deal includes buying out minorities in three OEC subsidiaries. It will pay an initial GBP20 million and then a further GBP5.3 million in May 2014 and two subsequent annual payments of GBP3.1 million as long as certain operational conditions are met. The company's share price has been hit despite Liberum Capital increasing its earnings per share forecast by 3% for 2014 and 4% for 2015. Liberum also has increased its price target for the stock to 320p from 290p.

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AIM - Winners

Wasabi Energy, up 13% continues to see share price increase after it said on Thursday that it had completed the acquisition of a 50% stake in Egenda Enerji, which controls an advanced geothermal power project in Turkey. The company said its wholly owned subsidiary Imparator Enerji decided to take up the previously announced purchase option, following a recent resource upgrade and comprehensive pre-feasibility study at the site. Wasabi didn't provide financial details of the acquisition. Wasabi also said its internal pre-feasibility study has been completed and validates the company's plans for a 30 megawatt expansion of the Tuzla Geothermal Power Project including the installation of additional power generation capacity.

Statpro Group climbs 6% after it said it had traded in line with market expectations in the third quarter, with an increased rate of new business wins for its cloud-based Statpro Revolution portfolio analysis software. Annualised recurring revenue for StatPro Revolution rose by about 85% in the nine months to end-September to GBP2.8 million, from GBP1.5 million at the end of December, at constant currencies. Client numbers rose to 251, from 156, over the same period. Total recurring revenue from clients whose subscription includes StatPro Revolution rose to GBP6.9 million, from GBP4 million at the end of December, and made up 27% of total software revenue, up from 16%.

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AIM - Losers

Nyota Minerals, down 21%. The gold exploration and development company's share price has been extremely volatile over the last two days after it said Thursday that is had signed two agreements with a new development partner for the Tulu Kapi Gold Project in Ethiopia. The first agreement is a head of terms for the sale of a majority stake in Nyota Minerals (Ethiopia) Limited which holds its flagship Tulu Kapi mine and other exploration licences in Ethiopia. The second part of the deal is the provision of a short-term loan facility of up to GBP360,000 to keep the company and its subsidiaries operational until the completion of the sale. Nyota said a number of conditions must be satisfied before the Tulu Kapi deal can go ahead. Both parties must complete due diligence, and the new partner must confirm it has sufficient funding to execute a work programme necessary to maintain the licence at Tulu Kapi.

Amiad Water Systems is down 14% after it issued a profit warning due to delays in irrigation projects and as a slowdown in the US and India continued. It said it now expects full-year revenue to be between USD115 million and USD120 million, and net profit to be between USD4 million and USD6 million. It said there's a risk that the delayed irrigation projects won't be executed at all this year, without giving more details. When it published its first-half results in September, the company had said it expected its irrigation business to perform well in the second half of the year, although a delay in implementation of new regulations had pushed back ballast-water contracts into 2014. It said at that time that it expected revenues in the second half of the year to be slightly higher than the USD61.7 million it booked in the first half. Revised guidance suggests revenues in the second half actually will be down.

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By James Kemp; jameskemp@alliancenews.com; @jamespkemp

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