LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers on the main London indices midday Monday.
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FTSE 100 - Winners
Persimmon, up 2.3%. The company suffered Friday on the news that the Bank of England will be given more power to intervene in the government's Help to Buy scheme. However Prime Minister David Cameron announced at the weekend that the house buying initiative would be brought forward by three months, commencing in a matter of days. As a result, house-builder share prices have been lifted Monday morning.
SSE, up 1.2%. The energy company said it remains on course to achieve its principal financial objective for 2013/14 - an increase of more than RPI inflation in the dividend payable to shareholders. It also said it expects to report a lower adjusted pretax profit in the first half because its retail unit has been loss-making, but to recover in the second half. Analysts say the company is also retracing the falls seen last week in the aftermath of Ed Milliband's threat to freeze gas and electricity prices for two years if he gets elected in 2015.
AstraZeneca climbs 0.6% on the news that the European Medicines Agency has accepted its Marketing Authorisation Application for olaparib. The drug acts against certain forms of cancer.
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FTSE 100 - Losers
BAE Systems, down 1.9%. The global defence and security company's shares have started to fall from highs reached last week. BAE reached a high for 2013 on Friday as the company witnessed a progressive increase in share price after it emerged Tuesday that it was back in the running as part of the eurofighter consortium on a USD7.2 billion fighter contract after South Korea restarted the bidding process to replace ageing planes.
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FTSE 250 - Winners
Bellway, up 3.8%, Redrow, up 3.5%, Taylor Wimpey, up 2.7%, and Barratt Developments, up 2.3%, are the top four risers on the FTSE 250. The house-building stocks are benefiting from Cameron's announcement that the government's Help to Buy programme will be launched ahead of schedule.
Keller Group is up 1.5% after is said it has won a contract for construction work at a hospital in Singapore worth GBP33 million. The project will create an integrated general hospital, community hospital, and specialist outpatient facility, catering for more than 700,000 residents in the region.
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FTSE 250 - Losers
Qinetiq Group falls 2.7% has it falls from gains made Friday. The company has also seen JP Morgan cut its price target to 210p from 215p.
Ladbrokes, down 0.9%. The betting company is falling after its recommendation was cut by Numis to Hold from Add, and its price target lowered to 185 pence from 210p. It says Ladbrokes' online strategy remains attractive, but "the journey is more tortuous than expected". In the first half of 2010, Ladbrokes reported EBIT in its digital sector of GBP29 million. In the second half of 2013, Numis expects the figure to be close to nil.
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AIM - Winners
Travelzest has jumped 104%. The travel company, which is completely reliant on bank funding to keep trading, has announced that lender Elleway Acquisitions Ltd had agreed to extend its on-demand working capital facility until October 7, giving it another week to try and find a longer-term solution to its debt crisis.
Parallel Media Group is up 29% after it posted increases in revenue and pretax profits following its successful running of the Ballantine's Golf Championship, which it will be re-launching in 2014 with the European Tour. The sports-marketing media and digital agency posted revenues of GBP7.6 million in the half year ended June 30, up from GBP5.5 million in the previous year. It posted pretax profit of GBP657,000 for the half, increasing more than six-fold from GBP88,000. Alongside this, the company has raised GBP500,000 by placing new shares which it says will remove debts it owes.
Sunrise Resources has climbed 14% following its announcement that it has uncovered further positive diamond results from its Cue Diamond project in Western Australia. The company said its Target 5 Kimberlite float on the Cue Diamond project found 204 kilograms of sample returns with a high diamond count of 1.08 per kilogram. Sunrise is now completing further studies of the site.
Universe Group, up 12%. The company reported higher profits for the first half of the year, as recent investments in its products and the sales team paid off. The payments and on-line loyalty programme company reported a pretax profit of GBP716,000 for the six months to end-June, up from GBP479,000 a year earlier, as revenues grew to GBP6.6 million, from GBP5.4 million.
Landore Resource is up 12% after the company announced that it is reviewing the exploration potential of its Junior Lake Nickel-Copper property in Canada. It is set to review the geological context of certain mineralisation in its VW Nickel deposit on the site after mineral resource tests found favourable locations for magmatic nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation. The tests led to a recommendation that rapid screening tests of large areas should be undertaken to evaluate two sulphide horizons.
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AIM - Losers
Albemarle & Bond Holdings, down 43%, is the biggest faller on the AIM index. The pawnbroking and jewellery company warned that the fall in the gold price has created uncertainty over its prospects this year and means it could breach earnings-based covenants on its debt agreements. In a trading update, the company said profit before exceptional items is within the range of market estimates for the last financial year ended June 30, but it is uncertain about its profits in the current year due to the gold price decline. It has already moved to cut costs, including closing 33 unprofitable pop-up gold buying stores. It said it has been talking with its banks about the covenants and a revised banking package, and is in active discussions with its largest shareholder about underwriting a rights issue that would help resolve the issues.
Environmental Recycling Technologies is down 31% after it reported reported wider first-half losses even though revenues increased and it cut administrative costs. The company reported a net loss of GBP2.4 million for the six months to June 30, wider than the GBP1.5 million loss it reported a year ago, even though revenues increased to GBP99,000 from GBP30,000. The company was hit by a GBP1.6 million charge to cover the non-payment of a loan by 2K Manufacturing.
ViaLogy is down 29% after traders reacting negatively to the news that it is going to seek new funding to push ahead with an expansion through new partnerships and a restructuring of the business. Despite narrowing losses for its last financial year, investors are wary after it warned that it needs money to support its current business. ViaLogy also warned that there would be uncertainty about it continuing as a business if it can't raise new funds.
Starcom, down 17%. Despite announcing that it was pleased with its progress in the year to date, with its full-year results expected to show a marked improvement compared with last year's results, its share price has fallen. Investors have reacted badly to the reports that its net loss for the six months to end-June was USD86,000 from USD917,000 profit a year earlier. However, the company remains upbeat. It states that "While the revenues and profits for 2013 are likely to be below market expectations, they are expected to still show good growth over those achieved in 2012 and the board is confident that this growth will continue in 2014 and beyond."
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By James Kemp; jameskemp@alliancenews.com
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