London midday: Shares add more gains

1st Feb 2011 12:07

Shares have moved higher following a decent start this morning, with upbeat company statements spurring buying interest.Strong growth in Chinese manufacturing and hopes of a peaceful resolution to the Egyptian crisis have also cheered investors. Here, the UK manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) came in at 62 in January, well ahead of expectations and the highest reading since the survey began in 1992.Concern over the situation in Egypt eased a little yesterday.Gold miner, Centamin Egypt is in demand today after it said "Recent political events in Egypt have not affected the safety of the company's employees or its day to day operations at its flagship project, Sukari. The company looks forward however to a speedy resolution to the current uncertainty and remains confident that such resolution will not negatively impact on the company's investment." Other miners are going well with Kazakhmys and Antofagasta the top risers.In company news, oil giant BP has resumed dividend payments, as expected, with a fourth quarter pay-out of 7c. But it also sprang a small surprise with the announcement of a decision to sell half of its US refining capacity including the troubled Texas City refinery.For the full year, the company reported a loss of $4.91bn, including a total pre-tax charge related to the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) oil spill of $40.9bn. In 2009, it had made a replacement cost profit of $13.96bn. The shares are slightly lower.Booming demand for mobile phones, tablet computers and other low-powered devices meant 2010 saw the highest ever annual revenues, profits and cash generation for chip designer ARM Holdings. Underlying fourth quarter profits jumped 47% to £47.6m from £32.3m, helping to lift the full year total by 73% to £167.4m. The shares are higher.Elsewhere in technology profits fell at Autonomy, another riser today, in the last quarter despite a sharp pick up in sales, but the search software giant added that market forecasts for the current year look 'conservative' given its current sales pipeline. Mining giant Xstrata produced more coking coal, semi-soft coking coal, mined nickel and refined nickel in 2010 than ever before, while copper, lead and ferrochrome were all up on the year before.The Anglo-Swiss firm ramped up output of Australian coking coal to 7.7m tonnes from 6.4m in 2009.Specialist carpet and floor coverings retailer Carpetright is a little downtrodden after it warned it now expects profits for the year to 30 April 2011 to be below the current range of market expectations as difficult trading conditions continue. Group sales declined by 6.4%, with the year on year effect of closing its operations in Poland accounting for 0.4% of this decline. Online grocer Ocado has jumped though. It made a profit in the fourth quarter as a record number of customers pushed sales to an all-time high. The company, which delivers groceries from the Waitrose supermarket, posted an EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) profit before exceptional items of £0.9m for the second half of the year ended 28 November, and an EBT(earnings before tax) profit of £0.3m in the fourth quarter. Tate and Lyle, the food ingredients firm, remains on track to meet its full-year targets after an encouraging third quarter performance. Reporting on the October to December quarter, the group saw continued growth in sales volumes worldwide within its Speciality Foods ingredients division.FTSE 100 - RisersAutonomy Corporation (AU.) 1,593.00p +6.48%Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,485.00p +5.62%Kazakhmys (KAZ) 1,568.00p +4.12%Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 1,999.00p +3.84%Fresnillo (FRES) 1,341.00p +3.47%Vedanta Resources (VED) 2,348.00p +3.35%ARM Holdings (ARM) 532.00p +3.10%BHP Billiton (BLT) 2,444.00p +2.69%GKN (GKN) 207.20p +2.63%Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 1,606.00p +2.55%FTSE 100 - FallersBAE Systems (BA.) 334.20p -2.28%Wolseley (WOS) 2,149.00p -1.29%Compass Group (CPG) 549.50p -1.08%Smiths Group (SMIN) 1,346.00p -1.03%InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 1,302.00p -0.99%BP (BP.) 480.40p -0.92%Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 41.33p -0.84%Invensys (ISYS) 333.60p -0.77%G4S (GFS) 266.70p -0.71%TUI Travel (TT.) 251.60p -0.55%FTSE 250 - RisersOcado Group (OCDO) 234.10p +7.39%Centamin Egypt Ltd. (CEY) 144.70p +6.09%Kenmare Resources (KMR) 37.50p +5.63%Spectris (SXS) 1,415.00p +4.81%IG Group Holdings (IGG) 470.00p +3.98%Exillon Energy (EXI) 415.00p +3.49%Ferrexpo (FXPO) 437.50p +3.48%Daejan Holdings (DJAN) 2,723.00p +3.34%Afren (AFR) 149.60p +3.03%Croda International (CRDA) 1,532.00p +2.82%FTSE 250 - FallersTate & Lyle (TATE) 533.50p -3.26%Cranswick (CWK) 830.50p -2.87%Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (MLC) 563.50p -2.68%Carpetright (CPR) 710.00p -2.67%SIG (SHI) 142.00p -2.61%Thomas Cook Group (TCG) 185.80p -2.52%Senior (SNR) 144.50p -2.23%Heritage Oil (HOIL) 319.30p -2.06%Bellway (BWY) 600.50p -1.96%Mcbride (MCB) 152.30p -1.81%