Below are the main news-driven share price movements at 4pm.
RISERS
AA (LON:AA.) up 6.3%. Berenberg initiated coverage on the car breakdown insurance firm with a ‘buy’ rating and a 350p price target.
Travis Perkins (LON:TPK) up 4.8%. The company dropped yesterday on an earnings warning, but was boosted today by an upgrade today from Citigroup which moved its rating to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’.
Shire (LON:SHP) up 4.7%. The drug group is eyeing potential takeovers other than its stalled mega-bid for US rival Baxalta, but refused to name them as it posted third quarter results. Shire said it was not solely focused on Baxalta and continued to evaluate other potentially value-adding smaller deals.
FALLERS
ServicePower (LON:SVR) down 9%. The workforce management specialist has joined an Internet of Things (IoT) development platform to build new applications.
Pearson (LON:PSON) down 5.1%. The company has now lost some 23% this week and was another 5% lower in late trading after it issued a profit warning this week. It doesn’t help that Exane BNP Paribas cut the company to ‘neutral’ from ‘outperform’ and slashed its target price to 1,000p from 1,650p.
Below are the main news-driven share price movements at 1pm.
RISERS
Cable & Wireless Communications (LON:CWC) up 9.4%. Virgin Media owner Liberty Global is in talks with the company over a potential takeover. CWC confirmed it was in talks after the market closed last night.
Optibiotix (LON:OPTI) up 3.9%. The share price rise can be in part attributed to Public Health England’s Obesity Report – which mooted plans for a sugar tax.
Science in Sport (LON:SIS) up 3.4%. The company is set for an injection of cash as it has arranged an £8.9mln share placing. The new capital would allow a further acceleration of its growth strategy, by funding international expansion and investments in e-commerce, the company said.
FALLERS
Northamber (LON:NAR) down 18.6%. Despite losses narrowing and sales rising, a strong first half was numbed by a down second half of the year, with disruption surrounding the Windows 10 launch a problem for the firm.
William Hill (LON:WMH) down 8.2%. The bookmaker sounded the alarm as it said profits would be at the bottom end of City forecasts after being hit by the double whammy of a lower win margin and a £23mln increase in duties.
Talktalk Telecom Group (LON:TALK) down 4.5%. Police have launched a probe into a cyber-attack on TalkTalk's web site in which personal customer data was potentially hacked. There is a chance that names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, TalkTalk account information, credit card details and/or bank details have been compromised.
Below are the main news-driven share price movements at 9.30am.
RISERS
Cyprotex (LON:CRX) up 11.5%. The company said in the nine months of the year so far, it is ahead of expectations due to strong growth in UK sales.
Hutchison China MediTech (LON:HCM) up 10.7%. The company’s drug R&D arm is set to get a US$10mln payment from its partner Eli Lilly and Co, which was triggered by the proof-of-concept phase II study for its lung cancer drug fruquintinib being completed and passed.
Applied Graphene Materials (LON:AGM) up 10.4%. The group entered into a joint venture with Puralube Germany GmbH. Applied Graphene will develop its graphene nanoplatelets for Puraglobe's sustainable base oil products, which should improve the lubricant and machine fluid’s performance.
FALLERS
Holders Technology (LON:HDT) down 20.2%.Trading has been in line with expectations everywhere except its Holders Technology Germany Printed Circuit Board division. It was impacted by a drop in demand for its products, meaning sales will be lower and the company expects to make an operating loss of £200,000. The company also faces an unforeseen tax liability of between £65,000 and £200,000.
Nighthawk Energy (LON:HAWK) down 17.7%. Mixed results from its Colorado fieldws flagged that there were minimal oil shows in certain parts of the prospect but unexpected finds in others.
Zamano (LON:ZNMO) down 13.7%. Discussions over a takeover of the Irish mobile billings group have come to an end.