FTSE 250 movers: Oil services stocks gush, Stagecoach hit by living wage warning

After hitting a six-day low in early trade, the FTSE 250 index closed the session in positive territory on the back of mining and oil & gas sector gains.

Vicissitudinous platinum miner Lonmin topped the mid-cap index for the second day as platinum, which is closely linked to the car industry, was the only precious metal to rise on Tuesday.

Energy service groups and engineers, Hunting, Petrofac and Amec Foster Wheeler were both among the highest risers, mimicking the table-topping gains of FTSE 100 rival Weir.

On Friday, Goldman Sachs highlighted Petrofac and Amec as its top picks but lowered its estimates on Hunting as a result of our lowered oil price assumptions for 2016.

On Monday Amec won a contract to contribute to the expansion of Fluxys' Zeebrugge liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Belgium. The overall EPC expansion will consist of the construction and start-up of a boil-off gas (BOG) recovery system and fifth LNG storage tank of the plant, which will be one of the largest in the world, with Amec providing detailed engineering of the BOG recovery system and associated facilities as well as the interconnection with the new LNG storage tank and existing plant facilities.

Online grocery specialist Ocado was an early riser, surging as much as 5% in early trade, before losing momentum as third-quarter results were digested and comments about its hopes to seal a deal to run the online grocery business of a big overseas retailer were judged not to be not-new-news. Gross sales rose 17% to £272m, with gross retail sales up by 15.3% versus the Bloomberg consensus of 15.0%. Average orders per week jumping 16.6% to 190,000 but the average order size falling 1.1%.

Bus and train operator Stagecoach skidded lower after analysts at Investec downgraded its rating to 'sell' and warned the impact of the governments National Living Wage would be most likely to hit the company's Regional Bus hardest, "as generally that is where wage levels are lowest". This could impact Stagecoach margins by potentially the greatest amount: between £24m-£47m or 60 basis points and 120bp from a group margin of 7.1% in FY15.

FTSE 250 - Risers
Lonmin (LMI) 22.90p +9.05%
Hunting (HTG) 438.60p +8.70%
Centamin (DI) (CEY) 59.50p +4.39%
Tullow Oil (TLW) 200.70p +4.10%
Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 821.00p +3.79%
Vedanta Resources (VED) 539.00p +3.75%
Amec Foster Wheeler (AMFW) 775.50p +3.47%
esure Group (ESUR) 250.50p +3.17%
Tate & Lyle (TATE) 549.00p +3.00%
Bank of Georgia Holdings (BGEO) 1,854.00p +2.94%

FTSE 250 - Fallers
Booker Group (BOK) 172.70p -4.11%
Stagecoach Group (SGC) 344.80p -2.82%
Premier Farnell (PFL) 133.20p -2.77%
Lookers (LOOK) 176.50p -2.38%
Poundland Group (PLND) 320.90p -2.10%
Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (MLC) 535.50p -1.74%
St. Modwen Properties (SMP) 443.40p -1.62%
Aldermore Group (ALD) 273.50p -1.62%
Carillion (CLLN) 312.40p -1.58%
LondonMetric Property (LMP) 165.00p -1.49%