LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are amongst the biggest risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Tuesday.
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FTSE 100 WINNERS
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Kingfisher, up 3.1%. The DIY Retailer reported a drop in sales and profit for its last financial year which it blamed on a slower French market and the strength of sterling, but the DIY retailer said the new CEO plans to organise the company "very differently" to create a unified business that will share IT systems and buying infrastructure.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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Meggitt, down 3.1%. Exane BNP Paribas has initiated the engineer of components for the aerospace, defence and energy markets at Underperform, with a 475.00 pence price target. The stock currently trades at 545.69p.
Randgold Resources, down 1.5%, and Fresnillo, down 1.5%. The gold miners are down as the price of gold continues itsrecent fall. The metal has fallen from its USD1,219.85 an ounce high last Thursday to trade at USD1,181.80 an ounce Tuesday.
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FTSE 250 WINNERS
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Pace, up 2.5%. The company has been upgraded to Buy from Hold by Liberum, as the broker believes the discount "on all metrics" at which the company is trading to its closest peers in unjustified.
Thomas Cook Group, up 1.3%. The travel operator said it is trading in line with management's expectations for its current financial year, having sold almost all the winter season holidays and more than half of the summer season. It said the UK business continues to trade ahead of last year, with "significant" bookings growth driven by robust demand particularly for its Winter Sun holidays, and while trading in Continental and Northern Europe is tough compared to last year's strong performance, it has improved since the first quarter.
RPC Group, up 1.1%. The rigid plastic supplier said it expects its revenue and adjusted operating profit to be in line with its expectations and significantly ahead year-on-year despite the impact of the strength of sterling against the euro.
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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Mitie Group, down 7.7%. The outsourcing company said it expects its headline operating profit for the year end-March to be slightly below current market expectations, as a result of market pressures in its homecare and social housing businesses caused by local authority spending cuts.
Petrofac, down 2.9%. The oil services company has been cut by Canaccord Genuity to Hold from Buy.
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AIM ALL-SHARE WINNERS
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China New Energy, up 28%. The company, which provides engineering and technical services to the bioenergy sector, said the fall in the oil price has had a negative impact on demand for biofuel and biorefineries, but its projects are proceeding broadly as planned. It said the view of its customers is that energy security and job creation are as important market drivers as the fall in the oil price, which has helped to mitigate the impact of the oil price decline on the company's project pipeline.
Richland Resources, up 10%. The company said it has launched a new branding campaign for its gemstones and sapphires and sales will start in the second quarter, a move that it hopes will allow it to be able to provide customers with certainty over the origin of the stones.
Premaitha Health, up 7.8%. The company said it has signed a collaboration deal with Centrum Badan DNA Group in Poland for its non-invasive prenatal IONA test. Under the deal, the pair will work to establish Centrum Badan as Premaitha's preferred partner for the Polish market.
Ithaca Energy, up 7.5%. The company said it swung to a pretax loss in 2014 as its revenue was hit by the falling oil price in the second half of the year and as it booked a massive impairment charge. But Ithaca said its production has increased to more than 12,500 barrels per day in the first quarter of 2015, in line its its full year production guidance of 12,000 per day. It added its operating costs have been brought down to around USD40 per barrel in the first quarter, with scope to further reduce these costs.
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AIM ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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Botswana Diamonds, off 37%. The company said it has conditionally raised GBP282,500 via a share issue, money it will use to fund its development projects in Botswana. The company has issued 28.3 million shares at 1 pence per share, and its shares currently trade at 0.87p.
Azonto Petroleum, down 35%. The company said one of its Ivory Coast projects will be delayed, even as it made progress on other parts of its operations in the country, and its pretax loss for 2014 widened significantly due to an impairment charge on the Accra Block project in Ghana.
Altona Energy, down 26%. Altona Energy said it has reached an agreement with Wintask Group Ltd and Sino-Aus Energy Group Ltd to alter the terms of the joint venture agreement between the three. The main focus of the joint venture agreement will now move towards underground coal gasification, Altona said. The current agreement is based on coal-to-methanol, coal chemical and synthetic gas production.
DDD Group, down 25%. The imaging services company said it will receive GBP25,000 less in proceeds from its share placing announced earlier this month due to broker Hume Capital Securities having fallen into administration. DDD will issue 22.5 million shares in the issue at 2 pence per share, slightly less than the 23.75 million it had intended to issue under the placing.
Rose Petroleum, down 21%. The company said the initial results from the Mancos Shale play in Utah have reiterated the strong potential of the prospect, although it said the conventional intervals at the site were not deemed commercially viable.
Northern Petroleum, down 14%. The company said it is working to ramp up production capacity at its Canadian operations, but it's also conducting a technical review of the whole prospect in an effort to allow it to redevelop it economically in light of the oil price decline and said drilling of the latest well resulted in a flow with a high water cut meaning the well is currently uneconomic.
Churchill Mining, down 12%. The company said it continues to be locked in a court case with the Indonesian government over assets in the country, with the next development not due to take place until August, and said it is also now in a regulatory spat after the London Stock Exchange accused the company of breaching AIM rules.
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By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com; @NeilThakrar1
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
7 May 2014 13:10
UK MIDDAY BRIEFING: HSBC Profit Slides, Sainsbury Holding Out
LONDON (Alliance News) - HSBC Holdings Wednesday reported a 20% drop in first-quarter pretax profit, driven by a weak performance Asia, Latin America and its investment bank, that was only partially offset by lower impairment charges and continued cost cutting.
In a
