FTSE 250 movers: Elementis rallies on trading statement; Vectura hit by downgrade

London's FTSE 250 was up 0.1% to 19,628.75 in afternoon trade, with broker notes providing much of the action.

Specialty chemicals group Elementis advanced after saying it was on track to grow full year operating profit across its three segments after a positive first quarter of 2017.

Weir and Carillion benefited from upgrades by JP Morgan Cazenove. The bank upped Weir to 'outperform' from 'neutral' citing close to 10% upside potential to its price target and upside risks to its forecasts should the pricing climate improve.

It lifted Carillion to 'overweight' from 'neutral', saying it forecasts a gradual de-levering despite its cash flow being around £50m more conservative than guidance, with an 8-9% cash covered dividend yield.

B2B media company Ascential was boosted by an initiation at 'buy' from Berenberg, which said it likes the group's willingness to reshuffle its portfolio to continually maximise organic growth.

"With one third of the company’s brands held for sale we believe that, upon their disposal, both growth and margins will improve. These disposals, coupled with a rapidly de-levering balance sheet, could give Ascential circa £200m of M&A firepower in the coming years."

On the downside, Vectura was hit by an RBC Capital Markets downgrade to 'underperform' from 'sector perform'.

Nostrum Oil & Gas was also on the back foot after it said total production in the first quarter was of 4.4 m barrels of oil equivalent, with an average daily production of 48,743 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Risers

Elementis (ELM) 310.90p 4.19%
Weir Group (WEIR) 2,084.00p 4.04%
Ascential (ASCL) 341.10p 3.11%
Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 853.00p 3.02%
Carillion (CLLN) 222.40p 2.82%
Big Yellow Group (BYG) 781.00p 2.36%
Tullow Oil (TLW) 216.80p 2.31%
Allied Minds (ALM) 165.20p 2.23%
Clarkson (CKN) 2,911.00p 2.00%
Dechra Pharmaceuticals (DPH) 1,657.00p 1.78%

Fallers

Cobham (COB) 129.90p -3.99%
Dunelm Group (DNLM) 605.00p -3.04%
Vectura Group (VEC) 139.10p -2.45%
Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (MLC) 447.20p -2.12%
Daejan Holdings (DJAN) 6,605.00p -2.08%
Nostrum Oil & Gas (NOG) 448.50p -1.84%
Wizz Air Holdings (WIZZ) 1,767.00p -1.72%
Lancashire Holdings Limited (LRE) 699.00p -1.55%
Debenhams (DEB) 51.95p -1.52%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 3,253.00p -1.51%