UK WINNERS & LOSERS: Morrisons and Tesco Rise On Kantar Data

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are amongst the biggest risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Tuesday.
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FTSE 100 WINNERS
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Wm Morrison Supermarkets is up 4.8% and Tesco is up 2.4%. Both grocers have managed to stem market share loss and falling sales, delivering their best performance in over a year, the latest industry data from Kantar Worldpanel suggested. Tesco's sales in the 12 week period actually rose by 0.3% year-on-year, having returned to growth for the first time since January last year, while Morrisons had its best performance since December 213 after its sales fell by only 0.4%.

Babcock International Group, up 2.7%. The support services company said it expects to meet its expectations for the full year to the end of March on the back of a strong performance from its existing business and from the acquisition of helicopter group Avincis. The group said it entered the fourth quarter of its financial year, starting January 1, with its order book at around GBP20 billion and a bid pipeline of around GBP13 billion. Its order book provides 70% revenue visibility for its 2015-16 financial year, it said.

Mondi, up 1.7%. The paper and packaging company said it expects its underlying operating profit for 2014 to be higher than the EUR699 million posted in 2013, though it did not provide guidance on how much higher it expects it to be. The group added it expects to book after-tax charges below what it booked last year.

ITV, up 1.3%. Barclays has raised the broadcaster recommendation to Overweight from Equal Weight, and its price target to 250 pence from 225p.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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Royal Mail, down 4.3%. JP Morgan has cut its rating for the company to Neutral from Overweight, and its price target to 505p from 575p.

Tullow Oil, down 3.3%. Exane BNP has cut its price target for Tullow Oil to 528 from 653, keeping its rating at Outperform.

Randgold Resources, down 2.5%. Deutsche Bank has cut the miner's recommendation to Hold from Buy, and its price target to 5,600 from 5,800, while Charles Stanley cut its rating for the company to Hold from Accumulate.

Barclays is down 1.7%, and HSBC Holdings is down 1.6%. According to IG Markets analyst David Madden, financial stocks are suffering as Greece and the European Central Bank are still at loggerheads, and the prospect of a Greek exit seems all the more likely. "Traders are not taking any chances and financial stocks are suffering the most as the fear of a full-blown crisis is too much to bear." Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and other European leaders will meet on Wednesday to negotiate the terms of Greek bailout package. Additionally, HSBC is facing probes in the US and UK over after allegations about activities in Switzerland in 2005 to 2007 that helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and hide assets.
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FTSE 250 WINNERS
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Micro Focus International, up 6%. Citigroup has raised the company's recommendation to Buy from Neutral, and its price target to 1,275p from 890p.

Bellway, up 2.2%. The housebuilder posted robust housing sales and forward sales for the first half and said it is confident on its full-year prospects. The group said its housing completions in the first half of its financial year to the end of January rose to 3,754 from 3,245 in the comparable period a year earlier.

Ultra Electronics Holdings, up 2%. The company said it has won a GBP18 million contract with the UK Ministry of Defence to supply sonobuoys for the Royal Navy's Merlin maritime patrol helicopter. A sonobuoy is a small expendable sonar system that is dropped from aircraft of ships for underwater acoustic research.

Halma, up 1.6%. The safety, health and environmental technology company said it expects adjusted pretax profit for its financial year to March 28 to be in line with market expectations, as it continues to see organic constant currency revenue growth in all of its regions. The group said it believes the current market forecasts for its adjusted pretax profit are in the range of GBP145.6 million to GBP156.5 million, with a consensus of GBP150.7 million.
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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Premier Oil, down 2.8%. Exane BNP has cut the oil company price target to 189 from 237, keeping its rating at Neutral.
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AIM ALL-SHARE WINNERS
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Premier African Minerals, up 9.1%. The multi-commodity natural resource company gave an update on its mineral projects, including news that it has seen "encouraging", positive results from the open pit trenching programme at its RHA tungsten project. The group said that the positive results from the open pit trenching programme at RHA, both confirms the geological model and offers the prospect of additional high-grade mineralisation within the pit envelope.
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AIM ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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Northern Petroleum, off 19%. The company said it has suspended work on Well 102/11-30 at the site. The drilling in the lower zone was water wet and while the upper zone produced oil, the water cut was too high to be economic within the current oil price environment, it said.
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By Daniel Ruiz; danielruiz@alliancenews.com

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