News

Oil companies came through strong near the close as investors were cheered by a bright start on Wall Street and shrugged off another tough day for the miners.

BP and Shell led the revival with good gains for Vodafone, BSkyB and Rolls-Royce also helping. The crude price rose by over $2 per barrel to $69. Elsewhere, Tullow Oil has plugged and abandoned the F1 well in the Indian Block CB-ON/1 after the oil explorer failed to encounter hydrocarbons.

Miners were a weak spot all day. Lonmin, Vedanta Resources, Antofagasta and Kazakhmys are closed down in a weak mining sector.

But it was Rio Tinto that is bearing the brunt of the selling on news that EU regulators told lawyers of BHP Billiton that its hostile bid for Rio may break competition rules. Xstrata was also weak.

The impact of the economic downturn on commodity prices has prompted fellow miner Anglo American to conduct a review of its project pipeline to assess capital expenditure on a project by project basis.

Wolseley also posted big losses after it decided to downsize its US building materials business, Stock Building Supply, after failing to find a buyer. It will close 86 branches, taking the number to 2009, it will reduce its presence to just 27 US states and slash its workforce by 3,000 to leave around 8,700 employees.

Drax expects full year results to be modestly higher than current market EBITDA consensus as low reserve margins in the UK electricity market for the last quarter of 2008 led to improvements in dark green spreads.

DSG International, owners of the Currys and Dixons brands, announced a fall of 7% in like-for-like sales in the 24 weeks ended 18 October and said the trading environment continues to be tough.

Merrill Lynch upgraded housebuilders Persimmon and Bovis Homes but said there are downside risk to short/medium-term earnings-per-share forecasts.

Bus and train operator Go-Ahead has made a "good" start to the year, with first quarter trading in line with expectations as demand remains "robust".

Specialist business publisher Informa expects full-year results in line with expectations, with trading remaining strong despite difficult economic conditions.

Sports Direct expects full year results to be broadly in line with forecasts, but said trading conditions continued to be the hardest the sports retailer had faced in its history.

Telecoms business Colt Telecom has reported a larger than expected increase in third quarter profit, leaving it "comfortable" with expectations for the year.

Among the small caps, European newspaper group Mecom is down again after a profit warning while clothing group Marchpole has halved on a warning that trading is very tough and the group is in regular dialogue with its banks.

FTSE 100 - Risers
BP (BP.) 467.75p +5.65%
Vodafone Group (VOD) 108.80p +5.63%
Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 1,498.00p +5.57%
Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 1,551.00p +5.22%
British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSY) 373.75p +4.84%

FTSE 100 - Fallers
Old Mutual (OML) 44.00p -12.87%
Fresnillo (FRES) 121.50p -11.05%
Friends Provident (FP.) 64.70p -7.57%
Xstrata (XTA) 855.00p -7.37%
British Airways (BAY) 138.00p -6.76%

FTSE 250 - Risers
Cattles (CTT) 41.50p +19.42%
Gem Diamonds (GEMD) 296.50p +14.15%
DSG International (DSGI) 25.50p +8.51%
Trinity Mirror (TNI) 43.25p +6.79%
Investec (INVP) 232.75p +6.64%

FTSE 250 - Fallers
Mecom Group (MEC) 3.70p -23.71%
Punch Taverns (PUB) 135.00p -14.56%
Dimension Data Holdings (DDT) 24.50p -14.04%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 11.00p -13.73%
Wellstream Holdings (WSM) 438.00p -12.84%