FTSE 100 movers: Miners and energy stocks gain; Experian drops on downgrade

London’s FTSE 100 index was up 0.9% to 6,189.75 at 1430 BST, with resources pacing the advance.

Miners and energy shares were among the best performers. Energy stocks benefited from a rally in oil prices while heavily-weighted miners bounced back from losses the previous day, despite weaker copper prices.

Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Shell and BP were all firmly in the black.

Experian was the biggest faller after HSBC downgraded the stock to ‘reduce’ from ‘buy’ and cut the price target to 1,140p from 1,290p.

It noted that Brazil’s leading banks are working to create a positive credit bureau and said this create significant medium-term uncertainty and will impair market expectations of longer-term growth.

“Brazil’s largest commercial banks namely Banco do Brasil, Caixa Economica Federal, Itau, Unibanco, Bradesco and Banco Santander are working to set up a Positive credit bureau that will compete with Experian. These players will have a stake in the bureau,” HSBC said.

Schroders was also on the back foot after Exane BNP Paribas downgraded it to ‘neutral’ from ‘outperform’ and cut the price target 10% to 2,700p as it took a look at asset managers.

While it remains positive on the long-term investment case for Schroders, Exane said its weak flow and fund performance momentum, lack of near term operating leverage and the lower likelihood of a change in capital return policy have led it to downgrade.

Pharmaceuticals Shire and AstraZeneca slipped at the end of what has been a very strong week for the stocks, which benefited from speculation that they could be bid targets following the collapse of the Pfizer/Allergan deal.

Risers

Anglo American (AAL) 536.50p 6.01%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 754.80p 3.75%
Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 1,720.50p 3.24%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 1,979.00p 3.21%
Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 1,729.50p 3.19%
Legal & General Group (LGEN) 234.30p 2.99%
BP (BP.) 349.10p 2.89%
Barclays (BARC) 151.20p 2.79%
Prudential (PRU) 1,316.00p 2.73%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 445.05p 2.59%

Fallers

Experian (EXPN) 1,230.00p -1.99%
Kingfisher (KGF) 374.30p -1.42%
Shire Plc (SHP) 4,256.00p -0.86%
Schroders (SDR) 2,504.00p -0.79%
TUI AG Reg Shs (DI) (TUI) 1,042.00p -0.67%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 3,127.00p -0.60%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 6,540.00p -0.53%
WPP (WPP) 1,639.00p -0.49%
Next (NXT) 5,480.00p -0.45%
AstraZeneca (AZN) 4,151.00p -0.40%