Crisis? What crisis?
That seems to be the mood in London, even after another setback in the Greek bailout talks.
The latest bout of wrangling between Greece and its creditors was terminated again yesterday and desperate EU leaders have arranged an urgent meeting on Monday to discuss the situation.
Mike van Dulken, going a bit overboard on the portmanteau words, said equities “shrugged off concerns about having to wait out yet another Greekend for progress between Athens and its creditors on avoiding a month-end Grefault (IMF says no grace period) and/or a potential Grexit”.
Van Dulken, the head of Research at spread betting firm Accendo Markets, believes investors are still basking in the glow of the Fed’s statement on Wednesday – or Fednesday, as he might have called it – while the Bank of Japan also boosted sentiment overnight by holding its accommodative stance.
At 1pm, the FTSE 100 was 21 points higher at 6,729 in early deals, but it is the mid-caps that are making the most noise today.
Telecoms group Colt Group (LON:COLT) has shot up 33p to 190p, which just happens to be the level at which majority shareholder Fidelity has pitched a take-it-or-leave-it offer.
The independent directors of Colt said the offer undervalued the company but stopped short of advising shareholders to reject the offer.
Various directors and members of Card Factory’s (LON:CARD) senior management team are selling, in aggregate, 7.4mln shares in the car seller, representing around 2.2% of the Card Factory shares in issue.
The shares are sitting in the FTSE 350 remainder bin, down 7.7% at 332p.
The top performing share on the whole of the market today is integrated property services company Styles & Wood (LON:STY), after it revealed profits tripled in 2014.
The shares are up 35% at 80.5p.
Also up 35% is Hunter Resources (LON:HUN), which has lodged applications for additional tenements covering 5,000 hectares to the north-west of its Pampamali project in Peru.
Biome (LON:BME) might as well have a “buy me” sign on its shares today, as they head 8% higher to 152.5p on the back of a contract win for its Stanelco RF division.
On the downside, Russia-focused exploration and production company Urals Energy (LON:UEN) saw losses balloon to US$13.7mln in 2014 from US$273,000 in 2013. The shares lost a quarter of their value on the news.