FTSE 250 movers: Ascential and Sophos lead mid-cap rise

The FTSE 250 index was slightly up on Wednesday afternoon, in contrast to its larger sibling.

Ascential remained on the rise on Wednesday after announcing the acquisition of MediaLink around midday the previous day, as investors digested the deal and analyst comments.

Deutsche Bank was positive, for one, saying the addition of the US-based networking events provider offsets the dilution from the disposal of Ascential's legacy properties but also makes sense on a standalone basis.

MediaLink is best known for organising exclusive events on the fringes of shows like CES or Ascential's Cannes Lions, which offers potential synergies into the group's existing products and what BD said was "the real prize" of 'productising' MediaLink.

"By that we mean the opportunity to offer clients a suite of subscription data products and benchmarks in the digital marketing space. This is an area where rigorous analytics on effectiveness are hard to create and need to be owned by a neutral third party, like Ascential."

Sophos was a big riser on the back as it revealed it has struck a deal to buy US software company Invincea for up to $120m in order to consolidate its position in the growing next-generation endpoint market.

The cyber security firm also said that billings and revenue grew in the third quarter and offered an improved outlook for the year, with rising renewal rates combining to lift expectations for very strong growth in free cash flow.

Investors were taking an extra spoonful of Tate & Lyle ahead of the sugar and ingredients group's third quarter results on Thursday.

Credit Suisse noted that this trading update traditionally tends to be "more qualitative than quantitative", but that it expects the group "to signal it is happy enough with consensus EPS estimates", which were 45.4p when last collected by the company.

The update also affords the group the first opportunity to comment on the annual calendar sweetener rounds which completed at the end 2016, with US-listed Archer Daniels Midland recently saying it was profits from sweeteners and ethanol as possibly rising as much as 30% in 2017.

Housebuilders Redrow and Bellway were strong share price performers after updating this week and with a government housing white paper that did not seem to offer any obstruction to continued strong earnings from the sector.

Half-year numbers from Redrow included a 50% increase to its dividend on the back of 13% growth in housing completions, a 23% rise in revenue and 35% leaps in profit before tax and earnings per share.

Bellway was on the rise for a second day after an encouraging update the day before.

Howden Joinery was also among the top risers, as analysts at Canaccord said they saw "increasing evidence" that the UK building materials companies and merchants are likely to have generally enjoyed a strong finish to 2016, meaning good news for the likes of Howdens, Grafton, Travis Perkins, Tyman, Eurocell and Marshalls.

"We would therefore expect them to generally report earnings numbers for 2016 at least in line with expectations when they report results over the next few weeks. Clearly, it is still too early to call 2017 definitively and higher costs remain a challenge, but given recent macro data points we would not expect the tone of the 2017 outlook comments to be incrementally worse than what we heard a few months ago," the broker said, pointing to good weather in December, solid macro data and good trading updates from Grafton and Speedy Hire.

The biggest faller on Wednesday was Dunelm as the homewares group's core division reported a 9.9% decline in operating profit to £68.1m with the operating margin down 182 basis points.

Investors may have been disappointed by the recently acquired WS Group reporting an operating loss of £1.8m, with management now pointing to the worse end of its guidance for the full year operating loss of £5-10m as it takes more time to bed in.

Commodities and mining stocks were mostly in the red, with falling oil prices weighing on the oil and gas sector due to surging US inventory data.

Tullow Oil, whose shares are very susceptible to oil price movements, was a big faller as it published full year results that contained little to surprise the market apart from a reminder of its hefty debt pile.

"The group has enjoyed a strong run recently on the back of a rising oil price, but with this upward trajectory hitting the skids and its hedges running out, things are starting to look a bit hairy again," said analyst George Salmon at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Iron ore specialist Ferrexpo was down despite iron ore continuing to recover the losses recorded in the first two days of trading post the Lunar New Year celebrations.

FTSE 250 - Risers

Ascential (ASCL) 316.30p 5.26%
Sophos Group (SOPH) 283.10p 4.97%
Tate & Lyle (TATE) 718.00p 3.68%
Howden Joinery Group (HWDN) 405.80p 3.57%
Bellway (BWY) 2,657.00p 3.51%
UDG Healthcare Public Limited Company (UDG) 666.50p 3.49%
CLS Holdings (CLI) 1,637.00p 3.48%
BBA Aviation (BBA) 295.00p 3.47%
Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (MLC) 423.00p 3.12%
Redrow (RDW) 466.60p 3.12%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Dunelm Group (DNLM) 625.50p -8.62%
Ferrexpo (FXPO) 151.10p -5.86%
Tullow Oil (TLW) 280.50p -5.01%
Vedanta Resources (VED) 1,039.00p -4.59%
Centamin (DI) (CEY) 169.20p -4.46%
Kaz Minerals (KAZ) 516.00p -4.44%
Victrex plc (VCT) 1,892.00p -4.11%
Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 879.50p -3.56%
Cairn Energy (CNE) 230.40p -2.91%
Weir Group (WEIR) 1,972.00p -2.81%