FTSE 100 movers: Oil prices drive Shell and BP up; Glencore nearly back to Friday levels

The FTSE 100 was up 47.61 (0.79%) mid-afternoon Thursday to 6,109.22

London Stock Exchange Group led the risers after Barclays upgraded sharemarket organiser and transaction services provider Deutsche Boerse from underweight to overweight.

Pearson was also a beneficiary of a positive broker note, after Citigroup reinstated coverage of the stock at buy with a 1,425p price target. It pointed to the scope for improving revenue trends, better free cash flow and scope for accretive cash usage.

And both sets of Royal Dutch Shell shares continued to bounce back from news earlier this week that it was pulling out of drilling in the Arctic. Shares jumped up following a rise in oil prices due to data showing an increase in global demand over the first half of the year. Estimates from the Joint Oil Data Initiative revealed that across 59 countries an average of 71.4m barrels were used per day over the six month period, up 3.3% year-on-year. That also sent BP shares up for the day.

Glencore looked like it made a complete recovery in the morning, bouncing back from Monday's new 52 week lows. However it wasn’t to remain that way with shares dipping slightly afterwards.

And after a stunning day on Wednesday on the back of a positive trading update from Sainsbury, supermarkets Tesco, WM Morrison Supermarkets and Sainsbury dipped back down again.Today also marked the ex-dividend date for WM Morrison.

FTSE 100 - Risers

London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) 2,501.00p +3.39%

Pearson (PSON) 1,160.00p +2.93%

BP (BP.) 343.35p +2.80%

Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 2,509.00p +2.49%

Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 1,599.50p +2.34%

Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 1,589.00p +2.25%

Meggitt (MGGT) 486.40p +2.14%

BG Group (BG.) 969.10p +1.90%

Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 3,935.00p +1.89%

Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 3,401.00p +1.83%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Glencore (GLEN) 88.97p -2.82%

Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 161.80p -2.59% - EX-DIV

Tesco (TSCO) 179.30p -2.13%

Centrica (CNA) 225.20p -1.75% - EX DIVIDEND

Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 256.80p -1.61%

Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 3,362.00p -1.49%

Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) 1,385.00p -0.86%

British American Tobacco (BATS) 3,612.50p -0.84%

CRH (CRH) 1,728.00p -0.75%

Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,359.00p -0.66%