London’s blue chips marked time with the holiday season in full swing and trading levels subdued.
A flat start was also predicted for Wall Street with no major economic news expected today.
FTSE 100 shed seven points to 6,844 with falls evenly spread across the board.
Best of the bunch was aeroengine group Rolls-Royce Holding PLC (LON:RR.) as US broker Morgan Stanley upgraded to ‘equal weight’ from ‘underweight’.
RR’s cash position has improved said the broker, which was sufficient for its price target to rise to 780p from 655p.
Randgold Resources (LON:RR.) was also going well on the back of a jump in the gold price on news that the Bank of England’s bond buying plans had flopped and the UK had joined the growing club of countries with negative bond yields.
Randgold rose 180p to 8,675p while the gold price spiked US$13 per oz.
Troubled security firm G4S PLC (LON:GFS) led the FTSE 250 as its half-yearly report sent the shares 15% higher to 224p.
Results also helped another perennial laggard, support services Interserve PLC (LON:IRV), jump 17% higher to 374p.
Peppa Pig owner Entertainment One Ltd (LON:ETO) was in demand as it confirmed a bid approach from ITV. Reports suggest that the film producer has rejected ITV’s offer.
Shares rose 10% to 238p or higher than the mooted 236p approach.
In the small cap space, dual-listed Harvest Minerals Ltd (LON:HMI, ASX:HMI) soared 30% to 8.15p on good numbers from a scoping study at its Maximus fertiliser project.
Another junior miner, Ironridge Resources (LON:IRR), jumped 17% to 15.8p on plans to buy a stake in a company with gold interests in Chad.
Sales are soaring at Midatech Pharma Plc (LON:MTPH), the oncology and immunology specialist. Shares rose to 134p from 113.5p overnight. Sales have risen ten-fold it said.
On the downside, Arcontech Group PLC (LON:ARC) dipped 6% to 0.38p after it said that it was taking longer to win new business than it would like.