LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - St.James's Place and Hargreaves Lansdown paced gains on the top flight index on Thursday, benefiting from positive broker commentary.
Buoying shares in the former, analysts at JP Morgan told clients they spied an "attractive entry point" into the shares of the asset manager following a recent 'pull-back' in their price of between 8% and 9%.

Yes, the stock had outperformed its peers year-to-date, but the above was a "buying opportunity", the broker said.

Its analysts backed up their 'overweight' recommendation on the stock - which was reiterated - by telling clients they expected to see continued growth momentum of inflows at the asset manager, alongside higher inflows into its funds under management.

Hargreaves Lansdown on the other hand found a bid thanks to Jefferies, whose analysts bumped up their target price from 1,395p to 1,490p, while retaining a 'hold' recommendation on the stock.

To take note of, Hargreaves had benefited from "operational difficulties" at rival Barclays Stockbrokers during the first quarter of 2018, they pointed out.


Easyjet was also on the up, boosted by Cannacord Genuity's decision to lift its recommendation on the shares of the budget carrier from 'sell' to 'hold', arguing that better-than-expected Summer 2017 trading would provide greater-than-expected lift for the shares.

Going the other way, HSBC was at the bottom of the pile on news that the lender, together with Deutsche Bank and Citigroup, had acquiesced to a combined $132m fine to settle a class action lawsuit brought against them in the States for having allegedly manipulated LIBOR interest rates.

FTSE 100 - Risers

St James's Place (STJ) 1,176.00p 4.07%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,536.00p 2.67%
Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,896.00p 2.65%
easyJet (EZJ) 1,321.00p 2.48%
SSE (SSE) 1,408.00p 2.47%
Unilever (ULVR) 4,507.50p 2.07%
Schroders (SDR) 3,504.00p 2.01%
3i Group (III) 964.00p 1.96%
Centrica (CNA) 179.00p 1.94%
TUI AG Reg Shs (DI) (TUI) 1,344.00p 1.90%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 747.00p -1.50%
Smiths Group (SMIN) 1,590.00p -1.24%
Next (NXT) 4,989.00p -1.21%
Tesco (TSCO) 185.60p -0.85%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 758.50p -0.85%
Merlin Entertainments (MERL) 459.70p -0.84%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 4,881.50p -0.71%
United Utilities Group (UU.) 855.00p -0.58%
Severn Trent (SVT) 2,138.00p -0.56%
Kingfisher (KGF) 303.90p -0.56%

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