London close: Footsie up, but off best levels
Footsie was higher Tuesday thanks to strong banks and housebuilders, but finished the session well short of its intraday peak after Wall Street gave up an early 100 point gain.
Persimmon, Barratt Developments and Taylor Wimpey were on investors' shopping lists following Monday's 6.7% hike in the US Homebuilders Index, the largest rise in around five years.
Mortgage lender Northern Rock was among the best performers, with Alliance and Leicester close behind following yesterday afternoon's investor presentation by Bradford & Bingley that helped allay fears of a Northern Rock-style crisis.
BHP Billiton raced ahead after reporting first quarter copper production up 23% on a year ago and iron ore output up 7% to a new record. Investors shrugged off news of higher development costs in the Gulf of Mexico.
Other mining heavyweights joined the advance, with Antofagasta and Vedanta Resources featuring among the top risers.
Insurer Prudential rose after it saw sales increase 5% in the first 9 months of 2007, driven by strong growth in Asia. On an annual premium equivalent (APE) basis, total group insurance sales totalled £1,979m in the 9 months to end-September, up from £1,723m in the corresponding period of last year.
Among the oil majors, BG was flat, Shell ended marginally lower, while BP gained despite reporting third-quarter replacement cost profit down 45% on last year due to lower gas realisations, lower reported volumes and higher costs.
Elsewhere, recruitment outfit Hays powered higher on rumours that Swiss rival Adecco is circling, while talk of a merger had leisure group Rank and bookmaker Ladbrokes in the blue.
Department Store Debenhams said pre-tax profit before exceptionals for the year rose 13% but added that like-for-like sales were down 5%. Like-for-like sales in the seven weeks to 20 October rose 2.1% with total sales up 3.9, it added.
Car retailer Inchcape said trading performance continues to be in line with expectations. Total sales for the three months to September rose 20.2% on a constant currency basis and for the nine months, it was up 27.5% on a constant currency basis.
Data search software specialist Autonomy posted record quarterly revenue in its third quarter results, and said integration of the recently acquired ZANTAZ is ahead of schedule and virtually complete. The shares fell though as investors remained unimpressed.
US shoe and clothing giant Nike agreed to buy British sportswear firm Umbro in a deal worth £285m. Shareholders will receive 193.06p in cash per share and will retain their entitlement to the declared interim dividend of 1.94p, which means the overall offer is 195p per share.
Paper-based packaging products manufacturer Smurfit Kappa said it anticipates full year 2007 underlying profit will be at the lower end of expectations.
The share price of Jersey-based mail order group Flying Brands, best known for its Flying Flowers brand, wilted after the company said the postal strike was just one of a number of blows suffered in the last 3 months.
Cashbox said it has reached a final settlement with Hanco ATM systems, which will see the UK ATM provider pay around £1.8m and conclude the litigation brought by Hanco.
FTSE 100 - Risers
Antofagasta (ANTO) 818.00p +4.80%
Vedanta Resources (VED) 2,150.00p +4.67%
Persimmon (PSN) 988.50p +4.16%
Friends Provident (FP.) 173.10p +4.15%
Schroders Nv (SDRC) 1,287.00p +3.62%
Schroders (SDR) 1,483.00p +3.49%
International Power (IPR) 482.75p +3.26%
Alliance & Leicester (AL.) 750.50p +3.16%
Experian Group (EXPN) 478.75p +3.12%
Legal & General Group (LGEN) 131.80p +2.97%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Tesco (TSCO) 453.75p -2.21%
SABMiller (SAB) 1,419.00p -1.18%
Vodafone Group (VOD) 177.60p -1.17%
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DSG International (DSGI) 120.40p -0.58%
Reuters Group (RTR) 640.00p -0.54%
HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 918.50p -0.49%
Rentokil Initial (RTO) 166.00p -0.42%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 1,780.00p -0.28%
Shire (SHP) 1,170.00p -0.17%
Cadbury Schweppes (CBRY) 612.00p -0.16%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Wellstream Holdings (WSM) 884.50p +10.49%
Bradford & Bingley (BB.) 278.50p +9.65%
Shanks Group (SKS) 234.50p +8.06%
Cairn Energy (CNE) 2,269.00p +7.48%
Inchcape (INCH) 476.75p +6.60%
Big Yellow Group (BYG) 485.50p +5.49%
Daejan Holdings (DJAN) 3,529.00p +5.34%
Atkins (WS) (ATK) 1,217.00p +4.73%
Spirent Communications (SPT) 66.50p +4.72%
Kier Group (KIE) 2,088.00p +4.56%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
Autonomy Corporation (AU.) 915.00p -4.19%
Euromoney Institutional Investor (ERM) 470.00p -2.29%
Brown (N.) Group (BWNG) 292.00p -2.18%
ITE Group (ITE) 172.25p -1.43%
DS Smith (SMDS) 223.25p -1.33%
SVG Capital (SVI) 858.50p -1.09%
LogicaCMG (LOG) 156.50p -0.95%
QXL Ricardo (QXL) 1,266.00p -0.86%
Aveva Group (AVV) 1,113.00p -0.80%
Thomas Cook Group (TCG) 282.00p -0.62%
