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London close: Stocks end marginally higher after Eurozone data

Fri, 14th Nov 2014 16:40

UK stocks ended the final session of the week with modest gains, but struggled against weakness among the mining and energy sectors.The FTSE ended the week at 6,648.13, a gain of 12.68 points on the day and 80.89 on the week."A combination of mining and energy company weakness has seen the FTSE struggle to keep the momentum from earlier in the week," Alastair McCaig, IG market analyst, said."As spot oil prices continue collapsing these moves are no real surprise. In a turn up for the books, better-than-expected economic data from both France and Germany look to be contributing to the FTSE staying in the green. Christmas is now just six weeks away and the markets appear to have decided that food retailers have been punished enough."Eurozone gross domestic product (GDP) growth picked up to 0.2% in the third quarter of 2014, according to Eurostat, surprising analysts who had expected the expansion to remain steady at 0.1% from the preceding three months. The annual GDP growth rate was unchanged at 0.8%, better than the 0.7% forecast.The region's two-largest economies, Germany and France, both returned to growth between July and September after contracting in the second quarter, though Italy´s did the opposite.In other data, the estimate for annual consumer-price inflation was confirmed at 0.4% in October, as expected.Despite the largely better-than-expected growth figures, analysts at Barclays said they had not changed their view on growth and the outlook for monetary policy.Over in the States, retail sales rose a seasonally adjusted 0.3% in October, bouncing back from the first decline in eight months and exceeding analysts' estimates of a 0.2% increase.Aggreko pleases with trading updateTemporary power and temperature control group Aggreko rose strongly after it gave an in-line trading update and said it continued to expect 2014 underlying trading profits to resemble those of 2013.Tesco traded higher after HSBC analysts upgraded their rating to 'overweight' from 'neutral'. This followed Monday's upgrade by Sanford C. Bernstein from 'market perform' to 'outperform'.SABMiller retreated from the previous day's gains which came after it said operating profits would have risen by 3% when adjusted for currency movements.Petrofac climbed after Investec reiterated its 'buy' rating.On the second tier, shares in technology products distributor Premier Farnell took a hit after the group warned that its full-year operating margin would be "slightly" below prior year levels. The group experienced softer market conditions in Asia and Europe, which dragged the gross margin 0.5 percentage points lower. It expects the gross margin to increase in the fourth quarter, but said recent trends would knock the operating margin below last year's figure of 9.6%.Restaurant Group dropped into the red after reporting a disappointing trading update, saying "sales have shown lower growth since the end of August and we are seeing some cost pressures".Rotork's shares slumped after the actuator manufacturing and flow-control company said revenues slipped in the third quarter due to the timing of deliveries. Turnover declined by 1% and were down 0.5% on an organic constant currency (OCC) basis. The decline came after OCC revenues had risen by 4.4% in the first half.Market MoverstechMARK 2,853.70 -0.05%FTSE 100 6,647.62 +0.18%FTSE 250 15,644.12 +0.08%FTSE 100 - RisersAggreko (AGK) 1,594.00p +3.37%Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 1,151.00p +2.49%Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 441.60p +2.15%Standard Life (SL.) 410.00p +2.09%Tesco (TSCO) 195.00p +2.01%Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 270.10p +1.89%Kingfisher (KGF) 296.90p +1.75%BG Group (BG.) 1,046.00p +1.70%Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,558.00p +1.70%Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,254.00p +1.58%FTSE 100 - FallersIntertek Group (ITRK) 2,659.00p -2.89%SABMiller (SAB) 3,494.50p -1.70%AstraZeneca (AZN) 4,655.50p -1.62%Weir Group (WEIR) 2,127.00p -1.30%CRH (CRH) 1,352.00p -1.17%Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 2,847.00p -1.01%Smith & Nephew (SN.) 1,058.00p -0.84%Centrica (CNA) 298.30p -0.77%Fresnillo (FRES) 720.50p -0.76%Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 469.00p -0.74%FTSE 250 - RisersInfinis Energy (INFI) 228.10p +5.02%Dairy Crest Group (DCG) 505.50p +4.88%Thomas Cook Group (TCG) 134.40p +3.62%Debenhams (DEB) 69.25p +3.44%Oxford Instruments (OXIG) 1,129.00p +3.29%Tullett Prebon (TLPR) 282.30p +2.99%Cairn Energy (CNE) 185.40p +2.60%Essentra (ESNT) 766.00p +2.41%Amec Foster Wheeler (AMFW) 1,083.00p +2.36%Hays (HAS) 127.30p +2.17%FTSE 250 - FallersPremier Farnell (PFL) 164.10p -8.78%Restaurant Group (RTN) 654.00p -4.46%AO World (AO.) 205.00p -4.43%Rotork (ROR) 2,401.00p -3.96%Centamin (DI) (CEY) 49.82p -3.54%Supergroup (SGP) 820.00p -3.07%Synthomer (SYNT) 196.50p -3.06%Fisher (James) & Sons (FSJ) 1,147.00p -3.04%Atkins (WS) (ATK) 1,301.00p -2.98%Euromoney Institutional Investor (ERM) 1,032.00p -2.92%

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