London’s blue chip stocks made a slow start to the week as miners struggled, but shares in Argos owner Home Retail (LON:HOME) bucked the trend on takeover murmurs.
Reports in the Sunday Times over the weekend speculated that the retailer is in play, with private equity firms giving it the eye.
The group, which also owns Homebase, could fetch up to £1bn.
Home Retail’s surprise profit warning last month, blamed on unpredictable Black Friday and Christmas trading, is said to be behind their interest, as shares have dropped 18% since then.
The stock was on the rise today, however, gaining some 7p, or 6.7%, to 110p.
It was the biggest gainer on the FTSE 250, bucking a generally downward trend.
Also higher were defence and security stocks including BAE Systems (LON:BA.) which lifted 5p or 1% to 497p.
Joshua Mahony, at IG, said: “Following the Paris attacks, we are seeing a clear shift away from austerity and instead towards expansion of military capabilities, which will ultimately benefit defence manufacturers more than most.”
It couldn’t help the FTSE100, however, which eased around 30 points to 6,305.
Travel companies remained lower, however, as investors remain nervous on the lasting impact of the attacks on the industry.
TUI AG (LON:TUI) lost 3.5% or 39p to 1,088p while easyJet (LON:EZJ) slipped 2.3%, or 39p, to 1,646p.
On the FTSE 250, Playtech (LON:PTEC) shares plummeted 76p to 775p as the gaming software supplier said its planned merger with Plus500 (LON:PLUS) was off. The latter's stock declined 29p to 329p.
Meanwhile, Mitie Group (LON:MTO) lost around 30p or 8.8% to 302p as it posted a 12.1% fall in its half-year pre-tax profits to around £50mln. The company’s healthcare division particularly struggled due to tough market conditions.
Over in the US, things were a little better. The Dow Jones moved 19 points, 0.1%, higher to stand at 17,842 whilst the S&P 500 moved up 0.27% to 2,094.
At the same time the NASDAQ was up 16 points, 0.32%, at 5,121.
The markets were seemingly lifted by a 25 month low for US manufacturing and a worse than expected existing home sales number
Connor Campbell, at spread-betting firm Spredaex, said: “Whilst the markets jumped at signs of the Fed ending its months-long uncertainty-littered crawl towards raising rates last week, investors would still take a lift-off delaying piece of data over something more positive.
In the small cap world, Summit Therapeutics (LON:SUMM) was a big gainer, climbing 17p or 14.2% to 136p.
The pharma group has reported ‘outstanding’ results in the phase II trial of ridinilazole, its new C.difficile (CDI) treatment.
Elsewhere, Stratmin Global (LON:STGR) soared 10% to 4p as London's only listed graphite production and exploration company reported further success in its on-going exploration programme.
In the pharma space, Deltex Medical’s (LON:DEMG) shares improved 9.4% toa round 4.4p.
The firm has signed up two new US hospitals for its bloodflow monitoring technology to take the total to fifteen.
It wasn’t all good news, however, as Kainos Group (LON:KNOS) lost 18% or some 51p to 228p despite making a £6.8mln pre-tax profit in the first half, the first results since it floated.
Investec said it was a strong set of results from the Belfast-based IT group, “however, we are conscious of the digital services gross margin mix and the upcoming Government Spending Review”.