Last checked at LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are amongst the biggest risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Friday.
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FTSE 100 WINNERS
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Tesco, up 3.6%. The UK's largest retailer reported a 1.3% drop in group like-for-like sales excluding fuel in the 13 weeks to May 30, as combined UK and Republic of Ireland like-for-like sales declined 1.5% and international like-for-likes fell 1.0%. The grocer is trying to pick itself up from the difficult year it recently finished and it continues cutting prices in a deflationary UK food market. The results were an improvement on the immediately previous quarter and its shares surged following the announcement. However, SocGen maintains a Hold rating and 235.00 pence price target. "There is no change to our fundamental view, ie the strategy is moving in the right direction but the turnaround will take time, and we see no positive surprise on margins this year."
J Sainsbury, up 1.7%, Wm Morrison Supermarkets, up 1.4%. Both supermarket chains are higher in a read across from Tesco's results.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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ARM Holdings, down 3.5%. Bernstein downgraded the chip maker to Underperform from Market-Perform.
Associated British Foods, down 1.6%. Numis downgraded the company to Reduce from Hold
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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Fidelity China Special Solutions, down 7.1%. The Shanghai Composite closed down 7.4% Friday, as the Chinese securities regulator tightens margin financing. The Securities Regulatory Commission published draft rules earlier this month that would cap the size of the country's margin trading and short selling for the first time, at four times a brokerage's net capital.
Evraz, down 4.6%. The steel, mining and vanadium company priced a four-year RUB15 billion bond at a coupon rate of 12.95% per year and said it plans to use proceeds from the bond issue to refinance its existing debt.
Petrofac, down 2.5%. Deutsche Bank downgraded the oil services company to Sell from Hold.
Spire Healthcare Group, down 2.5% at 340.44 pence. Private equity firm Cinven confirmed it has sold its remaining 8.4% stake in the private hospital group for GBP115.2 million. Cinven sold 33.89 million shares in Spire at 340 pence per share. Spire shares closed at 349.00p Thursday.
Qinetiq Group, down 2.0% at 230.50p. UBS downgraded the defence services company to Sell from Neutral after a strong share-price performance. "The recent results, with strong cash conversion, caused the stock to rally significantly – we believe is now overdone with fair value remaining at 205 pence," says UBS analyst Charles Armitage. The bank keeps a 205 pence price target on the shares.
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AIM ALL-SHARE WINNERS
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Tissue Regenix Group, up 10%. The company said it has gained further coverage approval for its wound care product DermaPure under the US national social insurance programme Medicare, securing approval from the Noridian Healthcare Solutions and Palmetto GBA Medicare administrators for reimbursement. This means that DermaPure is now available to 20.7 million Medicare beneficiaries across 30 states, Tissue Regenix said.
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AIM ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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Resource Holding Management, down 26%. The company said a subsidiary of PUC Founder Bhd has started a voluntary winding-up process in China. Resource Holding, which holds a 46% stake in PUC Founder, said the latter's RedHot Media International (Shanghai) Co business has started the process. Following completion of the winding up, the subsidiary will stop operations and be closed down.
Zanaga Iron Ore Co, down 9.1%. The company said its pretax loss widened significantly in 2014 due to a writedown booked on its project in the Republic of Congo. Zanaga said its pretax loss for the year was USD164.8 million, substantially wider than the USD6.7 million loss the company posted in 2014.
By Daniel Ruiz; danielruiz@alliancenews.com
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
13 Mar 2024 12:06
IN BRIEF: Fidelity China to buy net assets from abrdn China for merger
Fidelity China Special Situations PLC - China-focused investment trust - Regarding combination of assets with those of abrdn China Investment Co Ltd, which was approved by the latter's shareholders on Wednesday, Fidelity China will buy about GBP126.6 million of net assets from abrdn China for the issue of 59.0 million new shares for about 214.6 pence each to abrdn China shareholders in accordance with the scheme. In November, the companies said that they agreed to create a closed-end investment vehicle in London with GBP1.2 billion in assets.
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