FTSE 100 movers: Whitbread and 3i boosted by upgrades
By Alexander Bueso
Date: Wednesday 29 Jan 2020
(Sharecast News) - London's FTSE 100 was up 0.01% at 7,481.81 in afternoon trade on Wednesday.
Shares of Whitbread topped the leaderboardon the heels of a recommendation upgrade out of HSBC, to 'buy', which also marked up its target price for the stock from 4,600.0p to 5,200.0p.
The Premier Inn owner may not be out of the woods yet, HSBC said, but revpar trends appeared to be bottoming despite the difficult comparators, leading the broker to "see some reason for optimism heading into 2021".
Rolls Royce was powering ahead right behind following Standard&Poor's decision the day before to revise its outlook on the engineer's long-term debt from 'negative' to 'stable'.
3i was also on the up - and trading near record highs - after Morgan Stanley upgraded the private equity and infrastructure investor's shares to 'overweight' and marked up its target from 950.0p to 1,300.0p.
Going the other way were defensive issues including Diageo, Unilver or Polymetal.
In the case of the former, a day before the drink maker's interim results, analysts at Citi were telling clients that organic sales growth may have slown to 4.0%, versus the 4.2% that the consensus had penciled in.
At 3.5%, Citi was also expecting the organic rate of growth in the company's earnings before interest and taxes to come in shy of analysts' estimates for a rise of 4.0%.
Full-year guidance for organic sales might also be trimmed due to the soft operating environment in India, the broker said.
Shares in Vodafone were also on the backfoot despite announcing the sale of its 55% interest in Vodafone Egypt to Saudi Telecom for $2.39bn.
Market Movers
FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,481.81 0.01%
FTSE 100 - Risers
Whitbread (WTB) 4,472.00p 2.80%
Melrose Industries (MRO) 245.90p 2.59%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 666.00p 2.30%
Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) 2,744.00p 2.08%
Ashtead Group (AHT) 2,582.00p 2.02%
Smith (DS) (SMDS) 355.40p 1.95%
Mondi (MNDI) 1,612.50p 1.67%
Kingfisher (KGF) 207.60p 1.52%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 221.10p 1.47%
Phoenix Group Holdings (PHNX) 771.80p 1.45%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
NMC Health (NMC) 1,327.00p -4.05%
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 202.10p -1.65%
Pearson (PSON) 577.60p -1.63%
Diageo (DGE) 3,097.00p -1.57%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 5,266.00p -1.50%
Unilever (ULVR) 4,438.00p -1.39%
Hikma Pharmaceuticals (HIK) 1,917.50p -1.29%
TUI AG Reg Shs (DI) (TUI) 806.20p -1.18%
Polymetal International (POLY) 1,246.50p -1.15%
Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 2,133.00p -1.00%
Email this article to a friend
or share it with one of these popular networks:
You are here: news
10 Lower Thames St,
London EC3R 6EN