London’s FTSE 250 was flat at 21,334.62 in afternoon trade on Tuesday.
Cruise operator Carnival gained after it reported the best ever week for bookings in the company’s history.
IP Group also rose after it said that portfolio company First Light had achieved a world first in nuclear fusion.
On the downside, cybersecurity firm Darktrace slid as JPMorgan Cazenove initiated coverage of the shares at ‘underweight’, saying the path to sustainable profitable growth was unclear.
JPM said that today, Darktrace leads the Network Detection and Response market and has seen good early success with its email product. However, against the backdrop of high competition and potential commoditisation of security solutions addressing similar use-cases and relatively low platform lock-in and customer stickiness, it expects customer acquisition and retention to become more challenging.
Moneysupermarket was also weaker after Barclays downgraded the stock to ‘equalweight’ from ‘overweight’ ‘and slashed the price target to 220p from 260p as it argued there was more upside elsewhere.
The bank said it still sees reasons to be positive on the shares. The CEO is making operational improvements, Travel and Money should trade well this year and the stock still looks cheap, with reported private equity interest protecting the downside, it said.
“However, in the last six months the stock has outperformed the European Internet sector, given its ‘value’ characteristics,” Barclays said. As a result, it now sees more upside on several other ‘overweight’ stocks.
FTSE 250 – Risers
Carnival (CCL) 1,448.00p 7.94%
Baltic Classifieds Group (BCG) 158.00p 7.78%
Trustpilot Group (TRST) 151.30p 5.44%
Syncona Limited NPV (SYNC) 167.40p 5.02%
Elementis (ELM) 124.10p 4.46%
IP Group (IPO) 93.65p 4.35%
Hammerson (HMSO) 33.14p 4.08%
Quilter (QLT) 150.75p 3.61%
Tullow Oil (TLW) 57.60p 3.60%
Diversified Energy Company (DEC) 122.10p 3.47%
FTSE 250 – Fallers
Darktrace (DARK) 417.00p -7.54%
Moneysupermarket.com Group (MONY) 180.40p -4.60%
TI Fluid Systems (TIFS) 188.20p -3.88%
CMC Markets (CMCX) 243.50p -3.37%
Countryside Partnerships (CSP) 269.60p -3.30%
Redrow (RDW) 519.50p -3.08%
Ferrexpo (FXPO) 182.40p -2.88%
Mitie Group (MTO) 54.30p -2.69%
Future (FUTR) 2,574.00p -2.50%
Genuit Group (GEN) 489.50p -2.49%
