LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Friday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Glencore, up 2.8%, Anglo American, up 2.8%, Antofagasta, up 2.2%, BHP Billiton, up 1.8%, Rio Tinto, up 1.5%. Mining shares were trading higher as they recouped heavy losses seen on Thursday as commodity prices slumped to six-year lows and as senitment in the sector improved on the back of the ahead-of-expectation results from Rio Tinto.
Mondi, up 2.1%. Deutsche Bank, Investec, UBS and Credit Suisse all hiked their target prices on the Anglo-South African paper and packaging company following its robust interim results, posted on Thursday. All the brokers are positive on the capital projects Mondi is undertaking and both Deutsche and Investec see scope for the company to pay special dividends.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Travis Perkins, down 2.1%. The builder's merchant was downgraded by broker Panmure Gordon to Sell from Buy. Panmure said the company's shares are trading close to high and despite its robust interim results posted earlier in the week, it sees little upside risk for the stock.
Sky, down 1.2%. The broadcaster is facing an investigation by communications regulator Ofcom following customer complaints that it ignored service cancellation requests. ITV is also trading lower, down 3.6%, as media companies show some softness on the back of weak results from the US media sector on Thursday.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Wizz Air Holdings, up 2.8%. JPMorgan Cazenove raised its target price on the Central and Eastern Europe-focused budget carrier and kept its Overweight rating in place. Last week, Wizz Air raised its full-year profit guidance and earlier this week it posted a rise in passenger numbers and its load factor for July.
Cobham, up 2.5%. The aerospace and defence manufacturing company was upgraded to Buy from Hold by Liberum and had its price target raised by JPMorgan Cazenove. On Thursday, Cobham posted a rise in underlying pretax profit in the first half on the back of the acquisition of Aeroflex.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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William Hill, down 7.3%. The bookmaker reported a drop in profit in the first half of 2015 as it was hit by tax hikes and a tough comparative period, and said it has bought a stake in online lottery company NeoGames. The company posted a 35% drop in pretax profit in the 26 weeks ended June 30 to GBP78.7 million from GBP121.8 million in the first half of the prior year. Revenue, however, grew to GBP808.1 million from GBP805.2 million. William Hill said that an increase in machine games duty and the introduction of the point of consumption tax cost the business GBP44 million in the half year, which in turn hit its profit. The half-year also faced a tough comparative which included the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the company added.
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AIM ALL-SHARE - WINNERS
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AorTech International, up 43%. The biomaterials and medical device intellectual property company said it expects to make further progress in its current financial year, as it posted a narrowed pretax loss for its recently ended financial year. For the year to end-March the biomaterials and medical device intellectual property company posted a loss from continuing operations of USD326,000, narrowed from a loss of USD823,000, on revenue of USD844,000, compared to USD418,000.
Getech Group, up 14%. The geoscience services business said it expects its pretax profit to double on surging revenue in its financial year to the end of July. It expects pretax profit for the year to the end of July will be GBP2 million, compared to GBP1 million it posted a year earlier. It expects its revenue to rise to GBP8.5 million from GBP6.6 million.
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AIM ALL-SHARE - LOSERS
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Golden Saint Resources, down 14%. The company said it has reshuffled its top management team and said trading conditions in Sierra Leone remain difficult. Golden Saint said Cyril D'Silva is to step down from his current position as executive chairman and interim chief executive to take up the chief executive role full time and become and executive director of the business. David McDonald, currently an executive director, will take on the role of executive chairman. Elsewhere, Golden Saint said Sierra Leone remains a difficult trading environment for the company, with particularly harsh weather conditions in recent months and the impact of the Ebola virus in the country hitting its operating timetables.
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By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance
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