LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers on the main London indices midday Friday.
-------
FTSE 100 - Winners
SSE, up 1.6%, and Centrica, up 1.4%, are the biggest winners on the blue-chip index. The energy companies are retracing some losses made Thursday after Labour leader Ed Miliband announced that he will freeze gas and electricity bills for two years if he is voted to power in 2015.
Babcock International is up 1.1%. The engineering support-services company said that trading in its markets for the half-year has remained positive and that it is confident of further strong progress. Results for the full-year are expected to be in line with its expectations. The company said that there had been no been material change in its financial position since July 11, when it said it had "around 80% of the Group's anticipated revenue for the 2013/14 financial year contracted".
IMI is up 1.1% on the back of the news that Mark Selway will replace Martin Lamb as its Chief Executive from the start of 2014. Lamb will step down after being at the helm for nearly 13 years. Selway was previously Chief Executive of Boral Ltd and prior to that CEO of Weir Group between 2001 and 2009.
-------
FTSE 100 - Losers
Persimmon, down 3.5%, is one of the biggest losers on the blue-chip index. The house-builder's share price is falling after UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced that he has given the Bank of England more power to intervene in a government house buying scheme. In a move to allay fears that the Help to Buy scheme, due to launch in January, may help fuel a possible house-price bubble, Osborne has asked the BoE to provide annual reviews of the scheme and given the bank powers to limit its impact.
-------
FTSE 250 -Winners
Domino's Pizza Group is up another 1.1%, continuing to rise, albeit at a slightly slower rate, after Numis raised its recommendation to Buy from Add on Thursday. The broking house is confident that the company is in good shape, with the UK business as strong as ever. Numis also believes that strong contributions from Germany and Switzerland will add to pretax profit in 2014.
QinetiQ Group climbed 1% after it reaffirmed its full-year guidance in a trading statement Friday. The company said that its EMEA Services unit continued to perform well, and the performance of its US Services unit remains in line with its expectations.
-------
FTSE 250 - Losers
Bovis Homes, down 3.4%, Bellway, down 2.2%, and Barratt Developments, down 2.1% are big fallers on the FTSE 250 index. The house-builders have been negatively affected by Osborne's decisions to award the Bank of England powers to limit the impact of the new Help to Buy scheme.
Countrywide, down 3.6%. The company is falling as investors react badly to Thursday's announcement that it will acquire commercial property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton Ltd for GBP34.1 million in cash after its parent company went into administration.
AZ Electrical Materials, down 2.9%. Numis has cut the speciality chemicals company to Reduce from Hold. Despite the company developing new products, the brokerage is disappointed by the news that those products are not expected to drive financial performance before 2015. The broking house is also wary that the benefits of directed self-assembly are unlikely to be experienced before 2015. DSA can be used to make smaller products that continue to contain a large amount of information.
RPC Group is down 2.9% despite announcing that it expects activity levels for the half year ended September 30 to be slightly ahead of the previous year. Investors have reacted negatively to the company cautioning that the price of polymer, a key input for its products, will have risen to near record levels by the end of the half year.
-------
AIM - Winners
Phorm Corporation jumps 133% after it reported strong growth in revenue and its other key performance indicators in a trading update Friday. The company said that it now had 3.6 million monthly opted-in users, and 1.2 million users active on a daily basis, a 100% increase from numbers in June. It said that it an average of 40 million advertising requests per day, up from 30 million in June.
Porta Communications climbs 20% on the back of the company reporting a five-fold increase in revenues in the half-year ended June 30. The company posted revenues of GBP8.5 million, up from GBP1.7 million in the previous year. Porta Communications said that the second half would see a better performance than the first, and it was therefore very likely it would continue to experience strong growth in 2014.
Archipelago Resources is up 17% after it said it had agreed to be acquired by PT Rajawali Corpora for 58 pence in cash, or about GBP338 million. Rajawali is already the company's majority shareholder, so the offer is to buy out minority holders.
Sefton Resources, up 10%. The oil and gas explorer is a big gainer on the AIM index as it restarted trading following an investigation into former chief executive Jim Ellerton and the leak of information onto the web, reporting higher production and positive cashflow.
-------
AIM - Losers
China Food Company falls 18% after it Thursday said its revenues and losses widened in the first half of the year due to discontinued operations, including the sale of its animal feed business which it hopes to complete during the summer of 2014.
Red Leopard Holdings, down 15%. The company has posted a narrowed pretax loss of GBP80,977, from GBP92,096 in the previous year. It posted no revenues. Its loss was equivalent to its administration expenses.
AEC Education is down 14% as it announced on Thursday that its Singaporean operation had been lent approximately GBP500,000 by the head of the unit to keep it going while it works towards getting its license to operate reinstated. AEC had its Singaporean license suspended by authorities for six months in August, meaning it can't recruit foreign students for its MBA programme.
-------
By James Kemp; jameskemp@alliancenews.com
Copyright 2013 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
