(Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Thursday.----------FTSE 100 - WINNERS----------Fresnillo, up 5.4%. "The biggest headline from last night was from the FOMC meeting, the monetary policy event was more dovish than expectations and this pushed the gold price through the roof," said Naeem Aslam at ThinkMarkets. Gold was quoted at USD1,380.35 an ounce on Thursday, up from USD1,344.50 late Wednesday. The Fed on Wednesday said it would "act as appropriate to sustain the expansion", indicating there could be more accommodation to help the economy. The Mexican gold miner was joined by mid-cap peers Centamin, up 4.6%, and Hochschild Mining, up 5.0%.----------Halma, up 2.2% UBS raised the hazard detection firm to Neutral from Sell.----------FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------Evraz, down 4.2%. The steelmaker said senior company executives and a major investor have completed the previously announced 1.7% stake sale in the company. Non-Executive Chair Alexander Abramov, Chief Executive Officer Alexander Frolov, Non-Executive Director Eugene Shvidler and Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich have collectively sold 24.9 million shares at 635 pence each, equating to GBP158.1 million in total. The company was not a party to the share sale and will not receive any proceeds from the placing. ----------FTSE 250 - WINNERS----------Dunelm, up 8.0%. The home furnishings retailer said it expects its full-year results to be "ahead" of its previous expectations following "strong" trading in May and June. Dunelm explained that it had been a "very good" year for like-for-like sales with performance particularly strong in May and June, helped a weaker performance during the same period the year prior. The FTSE 250-listed firm now expects to report pretax profit for the year ended June 27 of between GBP124 million and GBP126 million. In financial 2018, Dunelm reported underlying pretax profit of GBP102.0 million. In early April, Dunelm had forecast pretax profit at the top of the analyst range of GBP115.6 million to GBP118.5 million. ----------Saga, up 7.7%. The over-50s insurer and travel firm was rebounding after shedding 12% on Wednesday as it cautioned over its Tour Operations arm. ----------FTSE 250 - LOSERS----------Dixons Carphone, down 13%. The electricals retailer warned that an increasingly changing UK mobile market will further hurt results in the new 2020 financial year. The company also slashed its annual dividend after sinking to a loss for 2019 financial year. For the year ended April 27, the phone and electrical goods retailer sank to a GBP259 million pretax loss from a GBP289 million profit the year prior. This was after revenue fell 1.0% to GBP10.43 billion from GBP10.53 billion the year before. Profit was hurt by one-off costs surging to GBP547 million from GBP67 million the year prior, this was primarily after impaired goodwill in relation to its UK mobile phone business amid a market in which handset sales volumes are falling and its market share diminishing. The company expects its UK mobile division to be significantly loss making in 2020 financial year, with sales and profit growth in the Electricals division across all operating regions.----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------Premier Technical Services, shares more than doubling to 209.701 pence from 87p at the close on Wednesday. The fall-arrest equipment services, lightning protection and electrical testing provider said it has agreed to a GBP265.3 million takeover offer from the UK infrastructure arm of Australian investment bank Macquarie Group. Macquarie is offering 210.1 pence in cash for each Premier Technical Services share. In 2015, when the company listed on AIM, shares traded at at 52p. The all-cash offer represents a premium of about 72% of the company's volume-weighted average price of 122p over the past 12 months.----------N Brown, up 8.3%. The fashion retailer reported a "solid" first-quarter trading performance, with total revenue lower on womenswear weakness despite digital and menswear delivering growth. For the three months ended June 1, total revenue declined 3.8% on the year prior. This was after womenswear revenue - including its JD Williams, Simply Be and Ambrose Wilson brands - sank 3.3% and its product brands unit shrank 13% as N Brown scaled back its unprofitable offline business. More positive was 8.0% growth in financial services revenue, 7.7% growth in menswear - driven by the performance of its Jacamo brand - and 3.0% digital revenue growth. N Brown left its financial 2020 targets unchanged. The firm still expects gross margins to remain either flat or up to 100 basis points lower. Meanwhile net debt is expected between GBP440 million and GBP460 million. ----------
3 Feb 2017 12:09
