MIDDAY REPORT: Headline shares were firmly higher at midday, with banking stocks, oil producers and the heavyweight miners underpinning progress, offsetting falls amongst engineering and utility sectors
At midday, the FTSE100 was up 38.42 points at 5706.97 with the FTSE250 ahead 39.8 points at 10,865.7 and the FTSE Smallcaps 10.45 points better at 2,901.19.
NEW YORK
US stock futures showed marginal gains, with concerns over the negotiations on Greek stinting progress.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 5 points at 12,641, S&P500 futures were flat at 1,310 and Nasdaq Composite futures added 2 points at 2,437.
LONDON MARKETS
Concerns over stalling discussions with Greece over dealing with its debt mountain and imminent widespread strikes in Italy kept Eurozone sentiment flagging. Finance Ministers meet in Brussels today before heading off to the wider discussions in Davos.
Banking shares remained popular today, with Royal Bank of Scotland topping the best of them, up 0.78p at 28.22p. Lloyds added 0.305p at 32.96p and Barclays improved 4.03p at 226.68p.
Fund managers also made headway, with Schroders advancing 19p at 1,480p, Ashmore up 2.15p at 361.25p and Hargreaves Lansdown 2.5p better at 446p. However, hedge fund operation Man Group edged down 0.75p at 120.45p.
Crude prices held up well, despite an EU upcoming embargo on Iranian supplies, with Iran threatening to close the strategically important Straits of Hormuz. Subsequently, Shell gained 29.5at 2,359 and BP jumped 11.83p at 479.28p. Cairn Energy ticked up 4.2p at 294.8p after confirming it will be returning $3.5bn cash to shareholders in February as a result of its Cairn India stake sale to Vedanta Resources. Cairn also announced it is to partner with Statoil to help exploit the Pitu block in Baffin Bay, west of Greenland.
Mining stocks made solid progress, with Vedanta Resources the best of them, up 32p at 1,178p, while Rio Tinto advanced 53.5p at 3,738p and BHP Billiton improved 16.75p at 2,142.25p.
India's Essar Energy topped the leaderboard at midday, rallying 5.1p at 127.6p.
Defence contractor BAE Systems rose 7.4p at 321.1p after reports that it plans to close its Portsmouth dockyard operations.
A Citigroup upgrade from neutral to buy helped global brewer SABMiller to gain 49.75p at 2,379.25p.
BSkyB added 3.75p at 675.25p after Numis upgrade the satellite broadcaster to buy from add. The same broker moved rival ITV in the other direction, although the shares still gained 0.53p at 76.03p.
On the downside with blue chips, utilities were out of favour, with National Grid losing 4.5p at 614p, Centrica off 2.8p at 280.5p and Severn Trent 11p lower at 1,521p.
However, industrial pump manufacturer Weir Group was the worst blue chip performer of the day, slumping 52p at 1,902p after JP Morgan Cazenove downgraded the stock from overweight to neutral. Similarly, a downgrade to neutral from buy at UBS hit engineer IMI, 22.75p lower at 854.75p.
Other notable casualties included frock shop chain Next, down 18.5p at 2,638.5p, temporary power supplier Aggreko, off 22p at 2,067p, and cruise ship operator Carnival, 44p lower at 1,945p.
At midday, the FTSE100 was up 38.42 points at 5706.97 with the FTSE250 ahead 39.8 points at 10,865.7 and the FTSE Smallcaps 10.45 points better at 2,901.19.
NEW YORK
US stock futures showed marginal gains, with concerns over the negotiations on Greek stinting progress.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 5 points at 12,641, S&P500 futures were flat at 1,310 and Nasdaq Composite futures added 2 points at 2,437.
LONDON MARKETS
Concerns over stalling discussions with Greece over dealing with its debt mountain and imminent widespread strikes in Italy kept Eurozone sentiment flagging. Finance Ministers meet in Brussels today before heading off to the wider discussions in Davos.
Banking shares remained popular today, with Royal Bank of Scotland topping the best of them, up 0.78p at 28.22p. Lloyds added 0.305p at 32.96p and Barclays improved 4.03p at 226.68p.
Fund managers also made headway, with Schroders advancing 19p at 1,480p, Ashmore up 2.15p at 361.25p and Hargreaves Lansdown 2.5p better at 446p. However, hedge fund operation Man Group edged down 0.75p at 120.45p.
Crude prices held up well, despite an EU upcoming embargo on Iranian supplies, with Iran threatening to close the strategically important Straits of Hormuz. Subsequently, Shell gained 29.5at 2,359 and BP jumped 11.83p at 479.28p. Cairn Energy ticked up 4.2p at 294.8p after confirming it will be returning $3.5bn cash to shareholders in February as a result of its Cairn India stake sale to Vedanta Resources. Cairn also announced it is to partner with Statoil to help exploit the Pitu block in Baffin Bay, west of Greenland.
Mining stocks made solid progress, with Vedanta Resources the best of them, up 32p at 1,178p, while Rio Tinto advanced 53.5p at 3,738p and BHP Billiton improved 16.75p at 2,142.25p.
India's Essar Energy topped the leaderboard at midday, rallying 5.1p at 127.6p.
Defence contractor BAE Systems rose 7.4p at 321.1p after reports that it plans to close its Portsmouth dockyard operations.
A Citigroup upgrade from neutral to buy helped global brewer SABMiller to gain 49.75p at 2,379.25p.
BSkyB added 3.75p at 675.25p after Numis upgrade the satellite broadcaster to buy from add. The same broker moved rival ITV in the other direction, although the shares still gained 0.53p at 76.03p.
On the downside with blue chips, utilities were out of favour, with National Grid losing 4.5p at 614p, Centrica off 2.8p at 280.5p and Severn Trent 11p lower at 1,521p.
However, industrial pump manufacturer Weir Group was the worst blue chip performer of the day, slumping 52p at 1,902p after JP Morgan Cazenove downgraded the stock from overweight to neutral. Similarly, a downgrade to neutral from buy at UBS hit engineer IMI, 22.75p lower at 854.75p.
Other notable casualties included frock shop chain Next, down 18.5p at 2,638.5p, temporary power supplier Aggreko, off 22p at 2,067p, and cruise ship operator Carnival, 44p lower at 1,945p.
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