LONDON MARKET MIDDAY: Weak Pound And WPP Lift FTSE 100 Above 7,100

LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks in London were higher on Friday, with the FTSE 100 boosted by a slight drop in the pound and gains from WPP and the London Stock Exchange Group. The FTSE 100 index was 34.81 points higher, or 0.6%, at 7,108.72 at midday. The large cap index closed down 32.47 points, or 0.5%, at 7,074.73 on Thursday. The mid-cap FTSE 250 was up 144.31 points, or 0.8%, at 19,329.15, while the AIM All-Share index was up 0.4% at 912.63.The Cboe UK 100 index was down 0.6% at 11,997.15, while the Cboe UK 250 was down 0.4% at 17,033.32. The Cboe UK Small Companies was down 0.1% at 11,140.34."A mixture of corporate results, a dip in sterling and a recovery rally in the resources sector helped the FTSE 100 to a decent start on Friday after a tricky week for the index. Sentiment was helped by better than expected Chinese manufacturing figures with a solid increase in new orders," said AJ Bell's Russ Mould. China's manufacturing output staged a slight improvement in February, but the sector remains in contraction territory, IHS Markit's latest Caixin general manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index showed. The PMI came in at 49.9 in February, slightly below the no-change mark of 50, but up from January's reading of 48.3."Encouragingly, both output and total new orders expanded slightly, despite export sales slipping back into contraction," said Markit.On the FTSE 100, WPP was the best blue chip performer, up 8.0% as the advertising firm pressed ahead with its turnaround strategy and delivered upbeat guidance.In 2018, pretax profit narrowed 31% to GBP1.46 billion from GBP2.11 billion the year prior. On a constant currency basis, profit dropped 28%.This was after revenue fell 1.3% to GBP15.60 billion from GBP15.80 billion the year before, up 0.8% on a like-for-like basis. Billings, however, rose 3.3% to GBP55.80 billion from GBP55.59 billion the year prior, up 3.2% on a like-for-like basis. "Our results for 2018 are at the upper end of the guidance we provided in October, with like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs down 0.4%," WPP Chief Executive Officer Mark Read said.WPP proposed to hold its final dividend per share at 37.3 pence, also keeping its 60.0 pence final dividend flat on the year before."WPP is undergoing a transformation that'll hopefully see it shed significant levels of debt, and dispose of several non-core divisions, meaning it emerges as a simpler business with a stronger balance sheet. Holding the dividend at 60p during the next few years would mean investors get a handsome yield while they wait, but markets are tough at the moment and turning around a supertanker like WPP takes time," said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst George Salmon.In 2019, the FTSE 100-listed firm expects like-for-like revenue - excluding pass through costs - to be down between 1.5% and 2.0%. Headline operating margins are also expected to be around 1.0 margin points lower than the 15.3% reported in 2018.Liberum analysts Ian Whittaker and Harry Read explained the "hit to operating margins looks less than would have been feared" for 2019. London Stock Exchange Group was up 2.2% after the stock exchange operator reported a strong 2018 performance and hiked its total dividend.LSE proposed a final dividend of 43.2p, 16% higher than the year before, taking its total dividend to 60.4p, a 17% increase on the 51.6p distributed in 2017.LSE reported pretax profit rose by 27% to GBP685.0 million from GBP541.0 million in 2017, with gross profit increasing in line with analyst consensus to GBP1.91 billion compared to GBP1.74 billion in 2017. Total revenue grew by 7.9% to GBP1.91 billion from GBP1.77 billion in 2017, marginally ahead of analyst consensus. Income also increased by 9.2% and was marginally ahead of consensus at GBP2.14 billion.At the other end of the large cap index, Rightmove was the worst performer, down 5.6% despite delivering a strong annual performance with revenue and profit rising on the prior year. For 2018, the London-listed property portal posted pretax profit of GBP198.3 million, higher compared to GBP178.2 million a year ago. Revenue meanwhile rose 10% year-on-year to GBP267.8 million from GBP243.3 million. Looking ahead, the company said despite "continuing uncertainties" emanating from Brexit it expected the UK online property advertising market to grow, and that it was not "materially impacted" by the property market cycle except in extreme circumstances. "Rightmove claims not to be affected by the property cycle except in 'extreme' conditions and there may also be some nervousness that the Brexit uncertainties flagged by the firm could push us towards those extremities," said Mould. In the FTSE 250, Jupiter Fund Management was the best performer, up 7.1% despite the asset manager suffering from large fund outflows and a negative investment performance which led to a fall in its assets under management. At the end of 2018, Jupiter's assets under management fell 15% to GBP42.7 billion compared to GBP50.2 billion at the end of 2017. Jupiter blamed market and exchange rate movements for a negative GBP2.9 investment performance. It recorded net outflows of GBP4.6 billion in 2018 compared to GBP5.5 billion net inflows in 2017. Jupiter's proposed a 2018 total payout 13% lower at 28.5 pence each from the 32.6p distributed in 2017. The company's dividend policy sees it pay out 50% of its underlying earnings, leading it to declare an unchanged 17.1p ordinary 2018 dividend per share. Its special dividend, however, was trimmed a quarter to 11.4p in 2018 from 15.5p in 2017. Shore Capital explained it had "expected a much bigger cut" to the special dividend after Jupiter had flagged that regulatory changes may have impacted its cash surplus. Shore added the firm no longer expected the changes to have a "material impact on the regulatory surplus." At the other end of the midcap index, Coats Group was the worst performer, down 5.5% after the industrial thread maker said its annual profit decreased slightly despite a rise in revenue due to higher administrative costs. For 2018, the company posted pretax profit of USD122.8 million compared to USD129.5 million a year ago. The slip in profitability was mainly due to higher administrative expense, rising to USD214.9 million from USD202.0 million a year ago. Revenue meanwhile rose 4% year-on-year to USD1.42 billion from USD1.36 billion. By business, Apparel & Footwear revenue was flat year-on-year while Performance Materials sales rose by 20% to USD332 million.The pound was quoted at USD1.3246 at midday, down from USD1.3286 at the London equities close on Thursday. UK manufacturing sector activity fell to a four-month low in February, according to the latest survey report from IHS Markit.The seasonally adjusted IHS Markit/CIPS UK Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 52.0 in February, in line with economist views and down from a revised reading of 52.6 in January. The January reading was originally reported as 52.8.Any reading above 50 suggests expansion in activity.The UK manufacturing PMI reading is currently at its second-lowest level since July 2016 - the month after the EU referendum, Markit said."It is clear that the manufacturing sector is being hit hard by the combination of Brexit and the global economic slowdown. As such, it will provide little support to the economy in the first quarter, despite signs of activity being bolstered by Brexit preparations," commented analysts at Capital Economics. In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.7%, and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was tp 1.0% at midday.The euro was marginally lower, quoted at USD1.1375 at midday, against USD1.1395 at the European equities close Thursday, amid a slew of economic data from the continent. Eurozone manufacturing activity deteriorated in February with the sector shrinking for the first time since June 2013, survey results from IHS Markit revealed.The eurozone manufacturing PMI fell to 49.3 in February from 50.5 registered in January. This was a bit better than IHS Markit's flash estimate for February of 49.2, but still was below the line of 50 that divides expansion from contraction.Meanwhile, eurozone inflation accelerated in February, while core price growth eased, and the unemployment rate held steady in January, data from Eurostat showed.The flash harmonized inflation for February was 1.5%, which was higher than January's 1.4%. The latest rate was in line with economists' expectations.Meanwhile, the core inflation rate that excludes energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, slowed to 1% in February from 1.1% in January. Economists had expected the rate to remain unchanged.Separately, the agency reported that the euro area unemployment data was steady at 7.8% in January after December's figure was revised down from 7.9%. Economists had expected the rate to remain unchanged at December's original 7.9%.Stocks in New York were set for a higher open, with the DJIA was called up 0.6%, the S&P 500 index up 0.7% and the Nasdaq Composite up 0.5%.Still to come in the economic events calendar, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis will release its core personal consumption report for December at 1330 GMT.