LONDON MARKET OPEN: FTSE 100 Climbs As BP And Shell Gain On Oil Surge

LONDON (Alliance News) - Oil majors were helping to drive the FTSE 100 higher on Wednesday following US President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.Gains by the shares of BP and Royal Dutch Shell were joined by those of Imperial Brands, which rose on its first quarter results, and of Vodafone, up on its EUR18.4 billion deal with Liberty Global.The FTSE 250 lagged London's blue-chip index, however, after Greggs dropped 17% on a cautious sales outlook for the year ahead.The FTSE 100 index was up 0.4%, or 33.14 points, at 7,598.89 early Wednesday. The mid-cap FTSE 250 index was flat, up just 9.47 points at 20,604.19. The AIM All-Share index was flat at 1,071.80.The Cboe UK 100 index was up 0.4% at 12,884.88. The Cboe UK 250 was up 0.1% at 18,887.63, and the Cboe UK Small Companies up 0.2% at 12,628.80.In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris and DAX 30 in Frankfurt were both flat early Wednesday."With the White House urging countries to immediately stop trading oil with Iran and a larger-than-expected drawdown in API oil inventories, supply concerns were pushing the oil market higher than its already 2018 highs," said Michael van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets.Trump said Tuesday the US will quit the "decaying and rotten" 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, breaking with Washington's closest allies.Germany, France and Britain said in a joint statement that they will "remain parties" to the agreement, while Iranian President Hassan Rowhani said that Tehran also will work to uphold it.Trump called the agreement "defective at its core" as he announced his decision to exit the deal and immediately reinstate economic sanctions against Iran.Brent oil was quoted at USD76.97 a barrel early Wednesday - having hit a high of USD77.18 earlier in the day, its best price since late 2014 - up from USD74.15 at the London equities close on Tuesday.Oil majors were benefiting. BP was 1.9% higher, the second best performer in London's blue-chip index, with Royal Dutch Shell 'A' shares up 1.4% and 'B' shares up 1.5%.The best performer in the FTSE 100 early Wednesday however was Imperial Brands, 4.2% higher after the tobacco giant said it expects a "considerably stronger" second half following a slip in interim profit.Revenue dipped 0.1% to GBP14.23 billion for the six months to March 31, from GBP14.30 billion a year before, as operating profit slipped 7.6% to GBP883 million from GBP902 million.Total tobacco volume growth in the period totalled 123.6 billion stick equivalents, down 2.1% on last year's 126.3 billion. Growth Brand volume was up 6.3% to 77.6 billion stick equivalents.The firm upped its dividend 10% to 56.87p from 51.70p."We expect a considerably stronger second half with further share gains and improving price/mix momentum. As a result we expect a stronger tobacco revenue performance in H2, particularly in Returns and Growth Markets, with more modest growth in the US." Imperial said.In third place among large-cap London stocks was Vodafone, up 1.5% on news of its deal to buy a number of European operations from Liberty Global for EUR18.4 billion. The telecommunications firm will buy Liberty's operations in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. These include Unitymedia in Germany, UPC Czech, UPC Hungary and UPC Romania."The combination of Vodafone and Unitymedia's non-overlapping regional operations will establish a strong second national provider of digital infrastructure in the German market," Vodafone said.The purchase price is expected to comprise EUR10.8 billion in cash paid to Liberty Global and the assumption of EUR7.6 billion in existing Liberty debt, subject to completion adjustments.The transaction is subject to regulatory approval, Vodafone said, and is expected to complete around the middle of 2019.Slumped at the bottom of the index was luxury fashion house Burberry. The stock sank 7.8% in early trade after news Groupe Bruxelles Lambert sold its entire 6.6% holding in the company on Wednesday for GBP498 million."The divestment of this stake is part of GBL's dynamic strategy in terms of portfolio diversification and allows it to realize a capital gain," GBL said. The accelerated bookbuild was first announced after the market close on Tuesday.Joining Burberry towards the bottom of the FTSE 100 was caterer Compass, 4.2% lower. Compass said revenue for the six months to March 31 fell 0.8% to GBP11.4 billion from GBP11.5 billion, while operating profit fell 2.7% to GBP853 million from GBP877 million. On an underlying basis, these two figures were up 4.8% and 4.5% respectively.The caterer said that, excluding the timing of Easter and extreme weather in the period, revenue was up 5.3% on an organic basis. The decrease in operating profit included a 5.3% hit from adverse foreign currency translation.Safely the worst performer in the mid-cap FTSE 250 on Wednesday was baker Greggs, slumping 17%."At our preliminary results presentation on February 27 we reported a good start to 2018, with company-managed shop like-for-like sales growth of 3.2% in the first eight weeks of the year," Greggs said."In the period that followed market data confirms weak customer footfall in retail locations, which has impacted demand for food-on-the-go. The impact was especially significant in the weeks of severe weather when many shops, including our own, could not be opened," the sausage roll-maker continued.Sales in May have started "more strongly" than that experienced in March and April, Greggs said, but added it is "cautious" in its sales outlook given uncertainties over market footfall.Total sales for the 18 weeks to May 5 grew 4.7%, the company said, and like-for-like sales in company-managed shops rose 1.3%.At the top of the mid-cap index was subprime lender Provident Financial, up 5.6% after it said its Vanquis Bank delivered profit "ahead of plan" in the first quarter, with the company's overall recovery plan on track and the Home Credit unit generating a good collections performance.Provident said Home Credit's collections performance during the "important" first quarter of the year continued its "progressive improvement". The shortfall in underlying performance against historic levels narrowed to 10% at March from 12% at December 2017.Collections performance is expected to return to historic levels during the first half of 2019, Provident added.In Asia on Wednesday, the Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed down 0.4%. In China, the Shanghai Composite closed down 0.1%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is up 0.2%.Still to come in the economic events calendar on Wednesday, Italy's retail sales are at 0900 BST and US producer prices at 1330 BST.