UK WINNERS & LOSERS: Weir Leads Blue-Chip Fallers, Airlines Dive On Ryanair Warning

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers on the main London indices Monday morning.

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FTSE 100 - Winners

HSBC is up 2.4% after pretax profits at the bank amounted to USD4.53 billion in the third quarter to September 30, compared with USD3.48 billion in the same period in 2012. HSBC attributed the increase in third quarter to higher revenue resulting from the movement in value of its own debt, as well as lower operating expenses. Underlying pretax profit was USD5.06 billion, compared with USD4.60 billion, with over half of the group's underlying pretax profit being made in its home markets of the UK and Hong Kong.

Anglo American climbs 1.5%. Anna Mulholland, analyst at Deutsche Bank, believes that the major driver behind the share price rise is the appointment to its board of Jim Rutherford, an investment banker with more than 25 years of experience as a non-executive director. Rutherford will be a non-executive director for Anglo American, with immediate effect. The company has also said that it has completed the sale of 100% of its Amapa iron ore operation in Brazil to Zamin Ferrous limited. The deal was completed after it received an initial cash consideration of USD134 million for the site.

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FTSE 100 - Losers

Weir Group, down 7%, is the biggest blue-chip faller. The company has cut its guidance after warning that revenues and profits were slightly below expectations in the third quarter as it suffered further project delays in its minerals division and a more-gradual-than-expected recovery in its oil and gas markets. The company now expects full-year profit before tax, amortisation and exceptional items to be between GBP425 million and GBP435 million at constant currencies, and a further GBP8 million to GBP12 million lower due to weakness in the US and Australian dollar and most emerging market currencies. Subsequently, Numis has downgraded the company's recommendation to Add from Buy, cutting its earnings forecasts by 6%.

EasyJet is down 4.1%, International Consolidated Airlines is down 2%, and TUI Travel is down 0.7%. Airline stocks have been hit by a read-across from Ryanair. Europe's largest low-cost carrier cut its earnings guidance for the second time in as many months, as it warned that pressure on fares was continuing. The company reported higher revenues and profits for the first half of its fiscal year, but said it now expects its full-year profit to be between EUR500 million and EUR520 million, down from previous guidance for between EUR570 million and EUR600 million. That guidance was set at the start of September, when the airline first warned of pressure on fares.

Meggitt, down 2.7%, continues to slide after it cut on Friday its full-year revenue outlook. Meggitt warned that trading in the third quarter had been slightly below expectations due to production problems at its sensing unit and due to the timing of contracts in its energy business.

G4S falls 2% after it said the UK Serious Fraud Office has opened an investigation into an ongoing criminal tagging contract that it first won in 2005. It didn't immediately provide any further details.

Royal Bank of Scotland is down 1.7% following a raft of price target revisions. Barclays has lowered RBS's price target to 380.00 pence from 400.00p, UBS has cut it to 350.00p from 365.00p, Morgan Stanley reduces it to 320.00p from 332.00p, while Bernstein cuts it to 470.00p from 490.00p.

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FTSE 250 - Winners

TeleCity Group climbs 2.1% after it said that its full-year earnings outlook continues to be in line with management expectations following satisfactory trading in its third quarter. The company said that order wins in the third quarter showed an improvement on the first two quarters of 2013 and on the previous year. In its UK division, order wins remained robust as churn fell compared to the first half of the year. Revenue per occupied square meter of data centre space improved compared to the first half, TeleCity said. As a result of these positive indicators, the company expects to see an improved financial performance from its UK division in 2014. In the rest of Europe the company continued to see growth, despite continued challenging conditions in Frankfurt. It said trading had been strong in Amsterdam, Stockholm and Dublin. Telecity also announced the launch of its new cloud computing platform Cloud-IX Monday. The platform allows customers to connect directly to cloud-service providers in TeleCity's data centres across Europe, the company said.

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FTSE 250 - Losers

Thomas Cook Group is down 2.5%. The company is another travel and leisure stock to be hit by Ryanair's profit warning.

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AIM - Winners

Tern PLC shares leapt to 5.50 pence per shares after they were readmitted to trading on AIM following a capital reorganisation. Prior to their suspension, Tern shares were quoted at 0.325p per share. After opening Monday at 6.00 pence, the shares have since back off by 15%. Last month, the company consolidated its share issue, offering one new share for each existing 1,000 shares and then sub-dividing the new shares into 50 ordinary shares, because of the large number of shareholders on its register with fewer than 1,000 shares. The company said those small shareholders would have had any proceeds wiped out by the costs of dealing the shares.

Mariana Resources is up 20%. The company said it is proceeding with an option it has to earn a 70% interest in Condor Resources Inc.'s gold-silver-copper Soledad prospect in Peru after successful due-diligence. Mariana said the site is approved for drilling and historic drilling has found significant grades, including 61.5 metres at 1.9 grams per tonne of gold, 146 grams per tonne of silver and 1.8% copper. The company said its intention is to perform a systematic soil and rock sampling programme and further tests to define drill targets with the view of commencing drilling in the first half 2014. The Soledad property is in the central Peruvian Andes, about 34 kilometres to the south of the Pierina gold-silver mine operated by Barrick Gold Corp, and has drill permits for the whole site.

Ultrasis is up 14%. The cognitive behavioural therapy provider said it had won a second US contract for its "Beating the Blues" depression and anxiety treatment in three days. The latest deal is to provide the California Institute for Mental Health with the treatment. The institute has won funding to conduct a four-site evaluation of using computerized cognitive behavioural therapy for mental health issues in California. Last Thursday, the company said it had won a contract with the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania to provide its treatment. No financial details were provided for either contract.

Atlantic Coal jumps 13% after it said its clean coal sales increased by 70% in its third quarter compared to the previous three months as the company reduced its stockpile of clean coal. The company said its total clean coal sales increased to 40,462 tonnes for the three months ended September 30 from 23,761 tonnes the previous quarter.

Photonstar LED Group climbs 13% after saying it had previewed its first retrofit smart LED lightbulb at this year's Gadget Show Live @ Christmas. "We are pleased with the progress we have made in the development of our retrofit Halcyon lightbulbs for the consumer market. Our wireless, smart technology connects lighting to the internet of things, whilst also reducing energy consumption," Chief Executive James McKenzie said in a statement.

Eckoh is up 9.2% after it said it has won a ten-year contract worth a minimum of GBP11 million to provide a suite of self-service applications to a major UK telecoms operator that it didn't name. The deal, which includes providing speech recognition applications, should lead to increased market expectations for its next financial year and beyond, the company said in a statement. The initial services are expected to go live next spring, it said.

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AIM - Losers

Tavistock Investment drops 37% after the company said it had placed 328.6 million new shares, raising GBP230,000 for working capital and to meet the costs of due diligence on potential investments and acquisitions.

Biome Technologies is down 12% after it warned that subdued demand in Asia for optical fibre manufacturing furnaces continued to hurt revenues in its RF Technologies Division, which primarily designs and builds radio frequency systems. Revenues for the third quarter in the RF division were GBP200,000, halved from GBP400,000 in the previous quarter.

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By James Kemp; jameskemp@alliancenews.com; @jamespkemp

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