LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Stocks in London were continuing to move higher come midday on Monday, alongside the largest gain the pound in three months, with investors taking their cue from strong gains in Asia as Brexit polls showed the Remain campaign was in the lead.
As of 12:03 BST, the FTSE 100 was 183.60 points or 3.05% higher at 6,204.69, led higher by gains in financials such as Hargreaves Lansdown and RBS together with housebuilders, including Taylor Wimpey and Barratt Developments.

Against the US dollar, the pound was gaining 1.84% to 1.4629. In parallel, front month Brent crude futures gained 1.64% to $49.99 per barrel on the ICE. Three-month LME-traded copper futures on the other hand were down by 1.2% to $4,552 per metric tonne.

Over the weekend, a Survation poll in the Daily Mail revealed that support for the 'Remain' campaign was in the lead at 45.0% versus 42.0% for 'Leave', while two YouGov polls - one for ITV's Good Morning Britain and one for the Sunday Times - both showed Remain in front.

In addition, a ComRes poll for the Sunday Mirror revealed the percentage of people saying they'd be relieved if the UK stayed in the EU rose to 45% after the murder of MP Jox Cox, from 35% before.

Meanwhile, an opinion survey conducted for the Observer between Tuesday and Friday showed an even split but of the 10% undecided, 36% said they were leaning towards Remain.

According to Oddschecker's tally of the odds being offered by bookmakers, the chances of 'Remain' coming out on top were being put at 31%, down from a record 44.0% just before the killing of lawmaker Jo Cox.

"We're still getting some rather ludicrous predictions of what the pound might do in the event of a "leave" vote, which to some extent has caused some rather extreme positioning, and will likely contribute to a lot more choppiness in the coming days, as this morning's Asia surge catches an awful lot of people the wrong way round," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK.

BT Group, TalkTalk jump

"With growing mobile data usage, we see mobile as an essential utility," UBS analyst Polo Tang said in a research note sent to clients. In case of 'Bremain', Tang expected a rebound in the likes of Sky, BT and TalkTalk. Those UK-centric three names had already underperformed going into the EU referendum (although they were relatively resilient operationally in the last downturn), he said.

Heavily indebted North Sea oil producer EnQuest has denied media reports that it is in talks with the UK Oil and Gas Authority (OAG) about contingency plans. The government body fears insolvencies at Enquest and mid-cap peer Premier Oil, the Sunday Telegraph reported, and is mulling plans "to guard against a North Sea bankruptcy crisis" as the pair are "wracked with debt following the oil market rout and now stand at the mercy of their lenders".

Gemfields, a British supplier of responsibly sourced coloured gemstones, reported record total revenues of $44.3m at a recent auction of rough rubies in Singapore as the increasing quality of Mozambique gems attracts growing demand.

Shares in biopharmaceutical development company Circassia Pharmaceuticals plummeted on Monday morning, after it announced disappointing top-line results from its investigational cat allergy immunotherapy phase III study.

Hammerson said it has exchanged contracts and completed the sale of Thurrock Shopping Park, Essex, to TH Real Estate for £93m. The sale price represents a net initial yield of 5.3% and is moderately below the book value as at 31 December 2015, Hammerson said.

Late-stage drug trials by GlaxoSmithKline on its treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have proved successful. The Phase III clinical testing by GSK and project partner Innoviva delivered data that is likely to support European regulatory submission by the end of 2016.

FTSE 250 precision instruments maker Spectris has completed the acquisition of the software and associated assets of privately-held software solutions company Capstone Technology Corp for $22.5m. Capstone comprises two key software platforms: the MACS software suite providing engineering services and software for advanced process control optimisation and dataPARC, which is a data historian, visualisation and analytics software suite for operational decision support.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 6,216.27 3.24%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 16,904.12 2.94%
techMARK (TASX) 3,060.79 3.20%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,320.00p 7.40%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 238.40p 7.34%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 187.80p 6.70%
Worldpay Group (WI) (WPG) 291.70p 6.50%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 566.00p 6.49%
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 69.26p 6.47%
St James's Place (STJ) 875.50p 6.25%
Barclays (BARC) 175.95p 6.15%
Aviva (AV.) 431.40p 6.02%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 505.50p 5.69%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 6,445.00p -2.50%
Fresnillo (FRES) 1,213.00p -1.14%
Rexam (REX) 627.50p -0.32%
SABMiller (SAB) 4,288.00p 0.76%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 2,028.00p 1.12%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 431.30p 1.75%
Hikma Pharmaceuticals (HIK) 2,189.00p 2.00%
HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 440.25p 2.10%
National Grid (NG.) 979.00p 2.11%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 848.40p 2.12%

FTSE 250 - Risers

Evraz (EVR) 118.60p 8.71%
Paragon Group Of Companies (PAG) 294.30p 6.82%
Greggs (GRG) 1,089.00p 6.66%
St. Modwen Properties (SMP) 318.40p 6.38%
AA (AA.) 279.80p 6.27%
Bovis Homes Group (BVS) 986.50p 6.25%
Bellway (BWY) 2,711.00p 6.23%
Serco Group (SRP) 109.60p 6.10%
Unite Group (UTG) 640.50p 6.04%
Virgin Money Holdings (UK) (VM.) 342.70p 6.03%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Circassia Pharmaceuticals (CIR) 96.75p -64.21%
Centamin (DI) (CEY) 109.10p -1.89%
Acacia Mining (ACA) 330.90p -1.63%
Allied Minds (ALM) 330.00p -1.29%
Templeton Emerging Markets Inv Trust (TEM) 459.40p -0.73%
P2P Global Investments (P2P) 844.00p -0.65%
BH Macro Ltd. GBP Shares (BHMG) 1,939.00p -0.41%
Riverstone Energy Limited (RSE) 866.50p -0.40%
Vectura Group (VEC) 156.60p -0.25%
IP Group (IPO) 167.20p -0.18%

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