London’s blue-chips finished off their best levels after a grim morning session in the US.
Manufacturing data from the UK, mainland Europe and China all provided encouragement in the morning session but private sector payroll numbers for March in the US put a dampener on things in the afternoon.
Nevertheless, the FTSE 100 finished 36 points higher at 6,810, with around three out of every five index constituents in the blue.
Thomson and First Choice owner TUI AG (LON:TUI) was a big mover, up 2% to 1,211p after it had a ‘buy’ rating reiterated by Deutsche Bank and its target price upped to 1,375p from 1,320p.
High street bank Lloyds (LON:LLOY) was wanted, up 1.4% to 79.4p after it was upgraded to ‘hold’ from ‘under-perform’ by broker Jefferies.
The big faller was B&Q owner Kingfisher (LON:KGF) after yesterday’s results showed a fall in profits for the year to January 31.
Shares were down 3.3% to 368p despite a number of brokers including Investec and Jefferies reaffirming their ‘hold’ ratings.
Public transport specialist FirstGroup said it is on track to meet full-year forecasts due to growth in the UK us and rail businesses. Shares jumped 6.8% to 97.15p.
In small caps, investment company CEB Resources (LON:CEB) added one-sixth to its meagre market value after it said it is to sell its remaining stake in ASX-listed Balamara Resources for around £91,000.
E-commerce marketplace cloudBuy’s (LON:CBUY) trading platform in India, CII, will go live on 24 April. Its shares rose nearly 15% to 29p.
After yesterday’s mind-boggling share price rise for broker Daniel Stewart (LON:DAN), Adam Wilson dumped 23.85mln shares in the company, which means he no longer has a notifiable interest.
The shares shot up yesterday from 0.2p to 1.7p after Quindell founder Rob Terry took a 7.4% stake (52mln shares). The shares virtually halved to 0.95p today.
Fastjet (LON:FJET) shares were down 12.8% at 1.03p after it placed shares at a penny a pop. The ambitious low-cost African airline has raised £50mln to build a pan-African airline network.
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