FTSE 250 movers: Banking and investment firms drive market down

The FTSE 250 was down 289.58 points (1.78%) to 16,010.10 shortly before the close on Wednesday.

Allied Minds continued to fall after rising earlier in the week on the back of news its subsidiary Federated Wireless completed a successful $22m (£15.4m) Series A Preferred fundraising round for the firm.

The US-based science and technology developer said the equity had come from investors including Woodford Investment Management ($15m) and Allied Minds itself ($5m). Allied Minds said the proceeds of the funding would enable Federated Wireless to complete its Spectrum Access System (SAS) and Environmental Sensor Capability (ESC) certification, conclude the development and accelerate the commercialisation of its cloud-hosted CINQ platform, as well as conduct field trials in the second half of 2016 with its technology partners. Federated Wireless described its Spectrum Access System as enabling "efficient sharing of spectrum resources", and its CINQ platform as providing "real-time management and allocation of these spectrum resources for government, telecom service providers and enterprises”.

Banks were the big fallers on the market today after UBS had a reality check for the sector in 2016, warning that another year of fundamental headwinds such as oil and central bank policy will likely weigh on earnings expectations. This hit shares in BGEO Group.

Strategist Philip Finch said sentiment towards the banking sector had become more balanced, although skewed slightly negatively given concerns about a China-fueled global growth slowdown and oil credit risks, though he felt the sector was reasonably well placed to absorb the latter. Based on bottom-up estimates, Finch forecasts overall non-performing loans (NPL) coverage for global banks at 117% in 2016, down from 125% in 2015. "Last week's surprise Japanese deposit rate cut into negative territory, alongside talks of further easing by the ECB (which sent bond yields to new lows), suggest further downside risk to bank margins in Japan and Europe respectively.

"In contrast, the hawkish stance by the Fed has provided a more favourable platform for net interest income growth for US banks even assuming no further rate hikes."

Meanwhile TalkTalk shares rebounded after Exane BNP Paribas upgraded the company from ‘neutral’ to ‘outperform’ on the company’s weak share price.

The telecoms provider’s value plunged late in 2015 after a serious cyber-attack saw the company suspend sales to new customers for a short time and see significant damage to its brand value. It said yesterday that the cyber-attack had a trading impact of £15m, and created exceptional costs of £40m-£45m, as well as estimating that 95,000 customers left due to the attack. Exane BNP Paribas on Wednesday said the spin and lack of confidence in guidance made the investment bank cautious initially. “However, with the stock below 250p it offers a far more compelling risk/reward.” The bank said while the hack had an impact on third quarter results, the fourth quarter is looking to have stabilised. “Our proprietary survey of 500 UK consumers shows that TalkTalk customers value price over anything else. “They believe that TalkTalk offers by far the cheapest price with a quality of service that is comparable to the big brands.”

And Ibstock also had a positive day after it announced it appointed Tracey Graham and Lynn C. Minella to the board as non-executive directors with immediate effect. It brings the make up of the board of the FTSE 250 brick and concrete producer to four independent non-executive directors, two executive directors, together with a further two non-executive directors.

Graham is currently a non-executive director at Dialight, ACAL and Royal London Group. She has previously been on the board of RPS Group and Albemarle and Bond Holdings, as well as heading up Talaris Limited and holding senior positions with HSBC and AXA Insurance.

Minella is group director of HR at BAE Systems and sits on the company’s executive committee. Prior to that, she was the senior vice president for human resources and communications for Air Products, and spent 22 years at IBM in a variety of HR leadership positions.

FTSE 250 - Risers

Northgate (NTG) 331.80p 2.72%
Greencore Group (GNC) 386.20p 2.09%
DFS Furniture (DFS) 320.40p 1.71%
Crest Nicholson Holdings (CRST) 590.00p 1.64%
Ibstock (IBST) 212.90p 1.38%
TalkTalk Telecom Group (TALK) 224.60p 1.17%
Shaftesbury (SHB) 853.50p 1.13%
HarbourVest Global Private Equity Limited A Shs (HVPE) 898.50p 0.96%
Aveva Group (AVV) 1,313.00p 0.92%
Centamin (DI) (CEY) 67.90p 0.67%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Allied Minds (ALM) 302.00p -7.08%
Keller Group (KLR) 749.50p -7.07%
Serco Group (SRP) 76.55p -6.36%
Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 233.00p -6.20%
Homeserve (HSV) 377.30p -6.14%
Pendragon (PDG) 36.91p -6.11%
Brewin Dolphin Holdings (BRW) 266.10p -5.67%
Interserve (IRV) 441.40p -5.64%
BGEO Group (BGEO) 1,694.00p -5.31%
Entertainment One Limited (ETO) 142.10p -5.27%