Sector movers: Properties lifted by Hammerson
With London racing ahead on a broad front, weak spots are hard to find today and are mostly to be found in the electricity sector, where British Energy gives back some of the gains it won on Friday after Cazenove reiterated its "outperform" rating and set a 715p fair value estimation.
Elsewhere in the sector, International Power is lower after a report in The Times that it is planning to join the bidding for a slice of rival power company Intergen.
Property stocks are in demand, helped by strong results from Hammerson.
The real estate group reported a 3% hike in full year net asset value (NAV) per share, while adjusted profits and earnings both improved markedly on the year before.
Adjusted profit before tax for the year ended 31 December 2007 rose 24.1% to £117.3m from £94.5m last time, while net rental income jumped 16.1% to £275.7m and like-for-like rental income grew 7.4%.
NAV per share increased to 1,545p from 1,500p a year ago. An increase of 9% in the first six months was partly offset by a 5.5% fall in the second half following the decline in real estate values in the UK in the last few months of the year.
The final dividend of 15.3p per share takes the total for 2007 up to 27.3p, an increase of 25.9% on the previous year.
British Land is up in sympathy, while Land Securities gets an extra boost from weekend bid speculation.
Top performing sectors so far today
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Banks 8,221.90 +3.85%
Real Estate 3,721.20 +3.31%
Industrial Engineering 3,077.70 +2.85%
Life Insurance 4,802.60 +2.83%
Fixed Line Telecommunications 3,087.20 +2.55%
Bottom performing sectors so far today
Electricity 7,318.10 -0.49%
Tobacco 24,216.20 -0.02%
