“If you’re going to bid for Afren then you’d would need to have a willingness to operate quite an extensive portfolio that extends into Iraq. I’m not sure these guys are up for doing that.”
The FTSE 100 rebounded strongly from Thursday’s 1.7pc sell-off to close up 81.52 points at 6,527.91, a 1.3pc jump.
But despite the rally, the London index was down 1.8pc since the start of trade on Monday, bringing its loss for the fortnight to 4.5pc.
Better than expected employment data from the US helped to stoke demand for equities yesterday, although the figures knocked gold to below $1,200 an ounce by spurring speculation the Federal Reserve will lift rates sooner rather than later.
Precious metals miners were inevitably hit: Fresnillo declined 29½p to 720p and Randgold Resources lost 64p to £40.91.
easyJet flew 88p higher to £14.59 after lifting its guidance for annual pre-tax profits, having benefited from the strike at Air France-KLM and lower fuel costs.
The upbeat comment on fuel pushed British Airways owner International Airlines Group up 17.3p to 365.2p and cruise ship operator Carnival 101p higher to £24.44.
Like easyjet, an encouraging trading update sent engineering group Renishaw up 92p to £16.82.
Similarly, oilfield services group Amec and Dunelm, the homewares retailer, pleased with their latest numbers and rose 47p to £10.92 and 35p to 829p respectively.
Debenhams added 1¾p to 61¾p in response to further stake-building by Sports Direct owner Mike Ashley, which was announced after the close on Thursday.
Tesco slumped 6.05p to 172.15p on a revival of talk the under-pressure supermarket group will raise £3bn from a rights issue.
A spokesman for the grocer said the company “has no current plans” to tap investors. Fund manager Miton slid 2.375p to 33¼p on news the retirement of veteran portfolio manager Bill Mott had resulted in the loss of a mandate for £325.6m of assets under management.
more
{ 0 comments... » Market report: Afren lifted by stake-building read them below or add one }
Post a Comment