Top stocks holds on to morning gains

Investors remained impressed with the very positive earnings reports released by a number of the UK's biggest companies. Share prices spiked in morning trading, moving sideways as the afternoon approached. By 12:30 BST the FTSE 100 index traded at 5,364.77, up 0.85 per cent.

Chris Bradshaw
shareprices.com - Thursday, July 29, 2010

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Reed Elsevier, AstraZeneca, BAE Systems and others sketched a shiny earnings picture, good news in an otherwise lacklustre economic outlook. Reed Elsevier is holding on to gains of 6.30 per cent as the publishing company's sales rose beyond expectations with advertising revenue stabilising.

AstraZeneca is holding on to gains of around 5 per cent, boosted by patent prospects in addition to solid revenues. Shares in BT Group are still rising, trading up by 3.36 per cent by mid-day after a 1 per cent lift in the morning, also on earnings reports.

The impact of earnings reports continue with Rolls Royce up 1.62 per cent, BAE Systems up 3.12 per cent and Royal Dutch Shell up 1.5 per cent.

British Sky Broadcasting Group however retreated by 0.7 per cent in morning trading. The company reported a larger than expected fall back in subscriber revenue, more subscribers cancelled their service contracts in Q4 than was expected. The so-called "churn" rate reached 10.5 per cent, above the 9.9 per cent expected by analysts.

Mid-cap stock index FTSE 250 is up almost 1 per cent. One of the top performers today is Connaught, recovering almost 15 per cent from recent losses. Connaught shares have been under pressure as the company admitted debt problem and said that government austerity measures will hit its revenue substantially.

 

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