Shire Share News (SHP)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks in London opened higher for the second day in a row, with investors awaiting the latest monetary policy decision from the Bank of England at midday.Shire was the best performer in the FTSE 100 on positive news from the US Food & Drug Administration, while Dixons Carphone found itself among the best mid-cap performers despite posting a sharp fall in annual profit.The FTSE 100 index was up 0.5%, or 40.93 points, at 7,668.33 early Thursday. The mid-cap FTSE 250 index was up 0.3%, or 64.47 points, at 20,990.85. The AIM All-Share index was also up 0.3% at 1,098.42.The Cboe UK 100 was up 0.3% at 12,995.05, the Cboe UK 250 was also up 0.3% at 19,224.16, and the Cboe UK Small Companies was down 0.2% at 12,869.46.At the top of the FTSE 100 on Thursday was drugmaker Shire, gaining 2.4%. Shire has secured approval from the US Food & Drug Administration to expand the offering of Cinryze to children aged six years and older with hereditary angioedema, a rare disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of severe swelling.Rio Tinto was 1.4% higher after HSBC raised the miner to Buy from Hold, Berkeley Group was down 1.2%, extending Wednesday's losses when it had said the housing market in the London and South East region has remained subdued. United Utilities was down 3.3% as the stock went ex-dividend, meaning new buyers no longer qualify for the latest payout. Land Securities, also ex-dividend, was down 1.4%.In the FTSE 250, Dixons was up 2.5% as investors were pleased the electricals retailer managed to clear the low bar it set for itself in May for the release of its annual results.Dixons on Thursday said like-for-like revenue rose 4% in the 12 months to April 28, as statutory revenue grew 3% to GBP10.53 billion from GBP10.25 billion last year, but pretax profit slumped to GBP289 million from GBP404 million.The trading update in late May saw the electronics retailer's shares lose around 20% in one day. The FTSE 250 constituent had warned that headline pretax profit for the year just ended would slump to GBP382 million from GBP500 million the year prior - in line with the figure reported on Thursday.For the year ahead, Dixons - also as previously announced last month - said headline profit is expected to be around GBP300 million."In short, pleasingly the UK performance was no worse than feared, but following the recent unscheduled trading update in May, there is little new news in today's prelims and guidance for next year," said analysts at Investec of the Dixons results.Crest Nicholson was up 2.4% after Liberum started the housebuilder with a Buy rating.

Also benefiting from broker actions was CYBG, 2.7% higher after JPMorgan raised the challenger bank to Neutral from Underweight. JPMorgan at the same time lowered CYBG's bid target Virgin Money to Neutral from Overweight. Virgin Money shares were up 1.3% early Thursday nonetheless, as CYBG's offer for Virgin Money is all in CYBG shares and so improves with CYBG's stock price.Elsewhere on the Main Market, Chemring was up 3.4% as interim revenue fell 8% to GBP229.3 million, though the defence countermeasures maker swung to a pretax profit of GBP4.3 million from a loss of GBP6.8 million last year.The company said the swing to profit in the half year to April 30 was a result of an improved underlying performance as well as reduced restructuring costs. It said underlying pretax profit rose 31% to GBP14.8 million from GBP11.3 million.Chemring declared an interim dividend of 1.1p per share, up 10% on last year's 1.0p. The firm said its full-year expectations remain unchanged, with approximately 80% of expected second half revenue either in the current order book or delivered to date.In focus in the UK on Thursday will be the BoE's meeting, in which no change to monetary policy is expected.There will not be a press conference with BoE Governor Mark Carney immediately after the decision, but he will give a speech at the Lord Mayor's bankers and merchants dinner at Mansion House in the evening at 2115 BST.Sterling was quoted at USD1.3137 early Thursday ahead of the BoE, lower than USD1.3201 at the London equities close on Wednesday.Analysts at ING said the pound is likely to be "fairly unaffected" following the BoE decision due to the likelihood of a "fairly vague policy signal"."With Brexit politics and the short-term economic backdrop both highly fragile, we think the MPC will feel little need to send any pre-committing rate hike signal this month," said ING.In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.3% while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was flat early Thursday.In Asia on Thursday, the Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.6%. In China, the Shanghai Composite closed down 1.4%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is down 1.2%.In the economic events calendar on Thursday there are UK public sector borrowing figures at 0930 BST, US initial and continuing jobless claims at 1330 BST and the housing price index at 1400 BST.