LONDON (ShareCast) - Sportswear and equipment retailer Sports Direct slumped today despite delivering a near-17 per cent jump in underlying profits during its first half, driven by an increase in online and international sales. However, the company did say that '[current] trading has now reverted to management's original expectations' following the outperformance in the first half. The group also revealed that long-running Finance Director, Bob Mellors, who was appointed in 2004, is to retire at the end of December on health grounds.

Precious metal miners also suffered heavy losses as they tracked gold and silver prices lower; Fresnillo, Vedanta, and Randgold were among the worst performers.

AMEC and Petrofac fell in sympathy with their FTSE 250-listed peer, energy services firm Wood Group, which disappointed with a pre-close update this morning.

Meanwhile, utility companies National Grid, United Utilities and Severn Trent all rose strongly after Standard & Poor's said firms operating the UK's electricity, gas and water networks would see gains as a result of the changes to regulations. A note from JPMorgan Chase & Co. predicted that utilities would suffer a limited effect as a result of the short-term credit impact from the regulations.

Standard Chartered was higher following a reiterated 'buy' recommendation from Investec, and despite a reduction on its target price from 1,900p to 1,700p.

AstraZeneca was up after a somewhat positive update. The drugs maker said the advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refused to back a wider application of its medicine metreleptin, although it did recommend it for a narrower range of people. The committee recommended the drug for the treatment of patients with generalised lipodystrophy (LD), a rare disease where normal body fat is lost and replaced by fat in other more dangerous internal areas.


FTSE 100 - Risers
United Utilities Group (UU.) 655.00p +1.63%
National Grid (NG.) 755.00p +1.21%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 1,300.00p +0.74%
Severn Trent (SVT) 1,679.00p +0.60%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 370.50p +0.41%
AstraZeneca (AZN) 3,460.00p +0.38%
Whitbread (WTB) 3,523.00p +0.37%
Carnival (CCL) 2,151.00p +0.33%
Croda International (CRDA) 2,274.00p +0.26%
Associated British Foods (ABF) 2,271.00p +0.26%

FTSE 100 - Fallers
Sports Direct International (SPD) 688.00p -10.77%
Fresnillo (FRES) 702.50p -7.02%
Vedanta Resources (VED) 772.00p -4.93%
Amec (AMEC) 1,050.00p -4.89%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 3,855.00p -4.84%
Mondi (MNDI) 901.00p -4.25%
Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 447.50p -3.76%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 316.10p -3.30%
Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 1,150.00p -3.28%
Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) 1,645.00p -2.49%

NR

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