London afternoon: Miners and techs in demand

Shares added to the morning's gains over the lunchtime session, buoyed by the prospect of a firm start on Wall Street.Miners lead the advance, after strong growth in Chinese manufacturing in January, though technology stocks are also in demand. Mining giant Xstrata produced more coking coal, semi-soft coking coal, mined nickel and refined nickel in 2010 than ever before, while copper, lead and ferrochrome were all up on the year before. The Anglo-Swiss firm ramped up output of Australian coking coal to 7.7m tonnes from 6.4m in 2009.Elsewhere in the sector Antofagasta, Fresnillo and Kazakhmys are sporting the best gains. Gold miner Centamin Egypt is also in demand after it said "Recent political events in Egypt have not affected the safety of the company's employees or its day to day operations at its flagship project, Sukari. The company looks forward however to a speedy resolution to the current uncertainty and remains confident that such resolution will not negatively impact on the company's investment." In the tech sector Autonomy, which describes itself as a specialist in "meaning based computing", is currently outperforming chip-maker ARM, after both companies gave well received updates today. In the last quarter Autonomy saw a dip in fourth quarter profits despite a sharp pick up in sales, but the search software giant cheered the market with its proclamation that broker forecasts for the current year look 'conservative' given its current sales pipeline. Peel Hunt was sceptical, however. In its view, the fourth quarter figures confirm "a sharp slowdown in the second half and the risk to 2011 estimates is on the downside even though the company continues to claim that analysts are being too conservative.""It is difficult to for us to understand why a company that has seen its growth rate halve in the last six months should command a PE [price/earnings ratio] of close to 20x. We see downward pressure on 2011 forecasts and expect the shares to continue to underperform," Peel Hunt analyst Paul Morland concluded.Peel Hunt was also taking on the party-pooper role with ARM Holdings. Booming demand for mobile phones, tablet computers and other low-powered devices meant 2010 saw the highest ever annual revenues, profits and cash generation for the chip designer, but Peel Hunt noted that the figures were boosted by two one-off items. "With two large positives one-offs helping the numbers we expect early euphoria to wear off post the [investment analysts] meeting and the shares could well finish down on the day," the broker predicted.Oil giant BP has resumed dividend payments, as expected, with a fourth quarter pay-out of 7c, but adjusted earnings of $4.4bn, which exclude non-operating items and fair value accounting effects, were below the market consensus forecast of $4.9bn.The shares received another dent when the company admitted legal action taken by its Russian partners could delay the British company's $8bn Arctic exploration deal with Kremlin-backed Rosneft.Specialist carpet and floor coverings retailer Carpetright is a little downtrodden after it warned it now expects profits for the year to 30 April 2011 to be below the current range of market expectations as difficult trading conditions continue. Group sales declined by 6.4%, with the year on year effect of closing its operations in Poland accounting for 0.4% of this decline. Online grocer Ocado has jumped though. It made a profit in the fourth quarter as a record number of customers pushed sales to an all-time high. The company, which delivers groceries from the Waitrose supermarket, posted an EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) profit before exceptional items of £0.9m for the second half of the year ended 28 November, and an EBT(earnings before tax) profit of £0.3m in the fourth quarter. Tate and Lyle, the food ingredients firm, remains on track to meet its full-year targets after an encouraging third quarter performance. Reporting on the October to December quarter, the group saw continued growth in sales volumes worldwide within its Speciality Foods ingredients division.Sticking with the foods sector sausage maker Cranswick rolled out a 5% increase in underlying like for like sales during the third quarter, but the market thought the results were a touch half-baked. Energy provider Scottish And Southern Energy (SSE) remains on course to deliver its stated financial and operational goals for the current financial year. However, the company said that the Generation and Supply division's operating profit for the current financial year is expected to be slightly lower than the previous year's level.Luxury interior furnishings group Walker Greenbank said adjusted pre-tax profits for the full year are expected to be no less than £4.9m, comfortably ahead of the top range of analyst forecasts.Shares in technical staff provider Matchtech fell after it said that full-year profits are likely to fall short of expectations by about 20%.Outsourcing services and technical personnel provider Morson was another personnel provider off the pace after it said trading in the latter part of last year remained challenging, though the group's results are still expected to be in line with expectations.China-focused security solutions provider Global Lock Safety has signed up Argentine football legend Diego Maradona as a spokesman for the company. Shares in the company surged though this is more likely to be because of a deal signed with the China Legal Daily newspaper than the enlistment of the services of Maradona. Global Lock will be able to market to, and access, a significant number of new customers among the paper's readership.