FTSE 100 movers: New Standard Chartered executive bolsters share price

The FTSE 100 was buoyed by yesterday's Fed rate hike, climbing 47.79 points (0.79%) to 6,108.98 by mid-afternoon Thursday.

Standard Chartered’s share price was bolstered after news around lunchtime that it has hired HSBC veteran Simon Cooper to head up its corporate and institutional banking division. Cooper, who is chief executive of HSBC’s commercial banking division, is due to join StanChart in April following regulatory approval. Chief executive officer Bill Winters said: “Simon is at the top of his game as a world-class banker with unrivalled experience across our markets and our businesses. He will join the group at a crucial time for the CIB business as we focus on delivering higher returns and selectively growing our client base, boosting investment in core products and services.” It also followed a report that Temasek, one of its top shareholders, was willing to give the company time to work on its turnaround before deciding on the fate of its stake in the bank.

Old Mutual continued to rebound as political issues in South Africa subsided. A broker downgrade and weaker rand weighed on the stock on Thursday last week, compounded by South Africa's president unexpectedly sacking finance minister Nhlanhla Nene, replacing him with relatively unknown David van Rooyen. He has since been replaced with Pravin Gordhan, the country's third finance minister in a week and a man who held the post between 2009 and 2014. That move restored some confidence to the market since the beginning of the week.

J Sainsbury also continued to rise on the back of data from Kantar Worldpanel earlier this week that the supermarket has increased sales and is growing its market share. With all supermarkets cutting prices, particularly staples like eggs and butter, the cost of everyday groceries fell by 1.9% this month, meaning the £71.33 spent on the 'big Christmas shop' last year should be trimmed. While its rivals struggle, Sainsbury's is making gains, increasing sales 1.2% and growing across its convenience, supermarket and online businesses to expand its market share to 16.7%. Last month Sainsbury's was the first major supermarket to claim a market share increase for over a year when it took a 16.6% gain.

The main faller on the market was Berkeley Group is as it went ex-dividend today. The company declared earlier in the month an interim dividend of 100p per share which is due to be paid in January. Berkeley said in its interim report on 4 December that it planned to increase its cash return target to shareholders to 1630p a share by 2021, with the remaining 1200p a share to be paid out in annual dividends of 200p a share over the next six years. It has so far returned 434p a share to shareholders of its planned 1300p return plan over 10 years from 2011.

FTSE 100 - Risers

Standard Chartered (STAN) 558.20p 8.87%
Old Mutual (OML) 175.20p 6.18%
Smith & Nephew (SN.) 1,136.00p 4.60%
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 258.50p 4.15%
Inmarsat (ISAT) 1,125.00p 3.69%
Mondi (MNDI) 1,354.00p 3.44%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 430.60p 3.09%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 602.50p 2.99%
Schroders (SDR) 2,932.00p 2.88%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 298.00p 2.83%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 3,538.00p -5.83%
United Utilities Group (UU.) 928.00p -1.01%
G4S (GFS) 217.30p -0.64%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,099.00p -0.51%
Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 6,158.00p -0.31%
Sage Group (SGE) 586.00p -0.17%
Next (NXT) 7,435.00p -0.13%
Travis Perkins (TPK) 1,950.00p -0.10%
Land Securities Group (LAND) 1,186.00p -0.08%
Smiths Group (SMIN) 937.00p -0.05%