FTSE 250 movers: Ferrexpo flies to the front, Senior creaks

The FTSE 250 had gained 0.5% by late Monday as miners climbed on the back of encouraging moves in metals prices.

On the back of iron ore strengthening, with traders pointing to futures extending their bounce from 18-month rising support, Ferrexpo led the mid-cap charge. Gold holdings its uptrend helped precious metal specialist Hochschild Mining.

ZPG was being lifted by optimistic investors ahead of interim results on Wednesday, where the consensus is for fairly strong revenue growth to £114m and EBITDA of £44m.

Retailer Pets at Home reports on the same day, with the Bloomberg consensus for revenues of £834.2m and pre-tax profit of £96.2m and at the update for the third quarter management stated the profit outlook remained in line with market expectations.

Senior was hit by profit taking having been boosted strongly by a note from analysts at Raymond James on Friday, when they upgrading their rating to 'strong buy' as they felt the company was likely to have reached the end of a stream of small profit warnings since April 2015.

Vectura was a faller despite the medical inhaler maker reporting some positive news about the successful completion of a Phase I clinical study severe asthma. VR942 was shown to be an attractive, novel and differentiated future treatment alternative to parenterally administered monoclonal antibodies that are currently indicated for the treatment of severe asthma. Investors are still smarting about Vectura and Hikma's snub by US regulators over their generic rival to GSK's Advair from earlier in the month, however.

FTSE 250 - Risers

Ferrexpo (FXPO) 169.10p 4.00%
ZPG Plc (ZPG) 369.50p 3.50%
Cairn Energy (CNE) 218.30p 3.36%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 300.10p 3.30%
Hochschild Mining (HOC) 286.70p 3.20%
SIG (SHI) 143.60p 3.01%
Redefine International (RDI) 38.63p 2.99%
Safestore Holdings (SAFE) 443.20p 2.97%
Pets at Home Group (PETS) 165.20p 2.80%
Inmarsat (ISAT) 807.50p 2.60%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Senior (SNR) 230.80p -2.49%
Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (MLC) 463.50p -1.76%
Paysafe Group (PAYS) 474.80p -1.74%
Greencore Group (GNC) 227.80p -1.60%
Virgin Money Holdings (UK) (VM.) 305.40p -1.48%
Galliford Try (GFRD) 1,255.00p -1.34%
Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 647.00p -1.30%
Just Group (JUST) 133.40p -1.26%
Indivior (INDV) 319.80p -0.99%
Hunting (HTG) 572.50p -0.95%