London midday: FTSE 100 in the blue

The FTSE 100 is still hovering a few points in positive territory on a fairly quiet day on the company news front.Utilities are one bright spot, with United Utilities, Severn Trent and International Power all higher. Wm Morrison has been upgraded to 'buy' from 'neutral' by UBS, which suggests the supermarket chain has at least £1bn to hand out either in a one-off distribution or through higher dividends."In our view, Morrison's balance sheet strength and ongoing cash generative capabilities could support both, although we think the latter is marginally more likely," UBS said.Sales continue to surge ahead at component distributor Electrocomponents with an improvement of nearly a fifth over the past four months. Overall, sales grew by 19% in the period to January, as the International business grew by around 23% and the UK by around 11%.The US Food and Drug Administration has accepted the AstraZeneca's resubmission of a new drug application for its blood-thinning drug BRILINTA, and set a review date of 20 July. Dairy Crest, the company responsible for Cathedral cheese and Country Life butter, reckons full-year profits will be in line with expectations following a "strong" third quarter. In a statement for the nine months to 31 December, it said sales were "broadly unchanged" from last year when the contribution from the offloaded stake in Wexford Creamery is taken out. The shares have fallen back a little.Power systems developer Rolls-Royce has signed a £20m contract to supply engines and propulsion equipment for four gas-fuelled ferries to be built for the Norwegian operator Torghatten Nord.Budget airline easyJet flew 19.1% more passengers on its orange liveried planes this January than a year ago. More than 3.74m people took to the skies with the carrier last month, up from 3.14m in January 2010. The load factor, which measures how well planes are filled, slipped from 79.3% to 78.9%. SuperGroup, owner of the rapidly growing Superdry clothes chain, leads the FTSE 250 higher after saying it has splashed out €40m in cash and shares to buy out its Benelux and France franchisee CNC Collections from its owner Luc Clément. CNC is the leading franchisee globally for the Superdry brand.Elsewhere in fashion, French Connection's ongoing businesses staged a strong profit recovery over the past six months and the fashion chain now expects to post at least £6.8m, up from £1m, for the year to January just ended. Shares in Accsys Technologies took a battering on Friday morning after the company announced a deeply discounted placing of shares. The wood products company is to raise €30m by way of an underwritten firm placing and open offer of 200m shares. The shares are being offered at €0.15 each, representing a discount of 58.9% to the closing mid-market share price on the day before the announcement.FTSE 100 - RisersSevern Trent (SVT) 1,449.00p +4.24%United Utilities Group (UU.) 576.00p +3.78%International Power (IPR) 424.20p +2.69%Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 278.00p +2.51%Aviva (AV.) 453.70p +2.35%BT Group (BT.A) 188.80p +2.11%Prudential (PRU) 711.50p +2.08%Standard Life (SL.) 240.00p +2.08%Anglo American (AAL) 3,307.00p +2.07%Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,981.00p +2.07%FTSE 100 - FallersCairn Energy (CNE) 423.80p -3.24%TUI Travel (TT.) 239.20p -1.56%International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (IAG) 256.70p -1.31%SABMiller (SAB) 2,062.50p -1.20%Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 2,175.00p -1.14%Aggreko (AGK) 1,481.00p -1.07%Essar Energy (ESSR) 522.50p -1.04%Next (NXT) 1,983.00p -0.90%Smith & Nephew (SN.) 706.00p -0.84%Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 2,160.00p -0.80%FTSE 250 - RisersSupergroup (SGP) 1,625.00p +6.21%Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CW.) 77.40p +6.03%Spirent Communications (SPT) 156.00p +5.98%ITV (ITV) 82.70p +4.16%Bellway (BWY) 626.50p +4.07%SEGRO (SGRO) 319.80p +3.90%Persimmon (PSN) 413.60p +3.66%Kenmare Resources (KMR) 38.50p +3.19%Aquarius Platinum Ltd. (AQP) 390.80p +2.84%Centamin Egypt Ltd. (CEY) 144.30p +2.70%FTSE 250 - FallersExillon Energy (EXI) 380.00p -3.23%Sports Direct International (SPD) 164.30p -3.07%Regus (RGU) 100.80p -2.89%Electrocomponents (ECM) 260.20p -2.62%JPMorgan Indian Inv Trust (JII) 407.00p -2.30%Avis Europe (AVE) 222.10p -2.24%Kesa Electricals (KESA) 127.50p -1.85%Domino Printing Sciences (DNO) 665.00p -1.48%FirstGroup (FGP) 371.20p -1.46%Computacenter (CCC) 433.00p -1.37%