London’s FTSE 250 was 0.6% firmer at 21,122.13 in afternoon trade on Tuesday.
TP Icap was sitting pretty at the top of the index after Shore Capital upgraded its stance on the shares to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’ following the company’s results last week.
It said the FY numbers were broadly in line with its estimates after significant downgrades through last year. “The results portray a company which still faces large structural challenges,” the broker said.
“However, the outlook was surprisingly cautious, in our view, given the backdrop of yield curve steepening, interest rate rises, market volatility and recent weakening in GBP versus USD.”
Sirius Real Estate was a high riser after saying it will convert its UK business to a real estate investment trust from 1 April.
IT infrastructure provider Softcat also gained after it said first-half profit was ahead of its expectations and that the outturn for the full year would be ahead of previous estimates.
Going the other way, review website Trustpilot slid as it reported a jump in full-year revenue but a widening of its pre-tax losses to $26.6m from $12.9m.
Diploma was knocked lower by a downgrade to ‘underweight’ from ‘neutral’ at JPMorgan.
FTSE 250 – Risers
TP Icap Group (TCAP) 132.60p 11.43%
National Express Group (NEX) 238.20p 6.53%
Sirius Real Estate Ltd. (SRE) 126.60p 5.15%
Lancashire Holdings Limited (LRE) 393.60p 4.29%
Softcat (SCT) 1,791.00p 4.19%
Hammerson (HMSO) 31.76p 4.13%
Polymetal International (POLY) 130.00p 4.00%
Big Yellow Group (BYG) 1,521.00p 3.89%
Beazley (BEZ) 422.10p 3.79%
Dr. Martens (DOCS) 240.80p 3.61%
FTSE 250 – Fallers
Trustpilot Group (TRST) 137.70p -14.89%
Diploma (DPLM) 2,574.00p -7.08%
3i Infrastructure (3IN) 333.00p -4.45%
Centamin (DI) (CEY) 86.58p -3.28%
Morgan Advanced Materials (MGAM) 309.50p -2.67%
Hochschild Mining (HOC) 126.80p -2.46%
Syncona Limited NPV (SYNC) 170.20p -2.41%
Oxford Biomedica (OXB) 662.00p -2.36%
Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 158.95p -2.33%
AJ Bell (AJB) 296.80p -2.24%
