FTSE 100 movers: Old Mutual rebound continues

The FTSE was on track to reverse Monday’s losses, with the blue chip market up 124.93 points (2.13%) mid-afternoon Tuesday to 5,998.99 points.

Old Mutual continued to rebound after last week's losses due to political issues in South Africa. A broker downgrade and weaker rand weighed on the stock on Thursday last week, compounded by South Africa's president unexpectedly sacking finance minister Nhlanhla Nene, replacing him with relatively unknown David van Rooyen. He has since been replaced with Pravin Gordhan, the country's third finance minister in a week and a man who held the post between 2009 and 2014. The stock clawed back quite a bit of ground on Monday, but fell again just before the close to only rise 1.86% on the day.

Coca-Cola HBC AG was the second biggest riser on the market on Tuesday. The bottling company revealed it had purchased 100,000 of its shares for an average price of 1,433.66p on 12 December and cancelled them. It followed an announcement in June of its intention to buyback a number of shares.

Supermarkets were on the rise after the latest Kantar Worldpanel data. Sainsbury’s continued to thwart its rivals in recent weeks, increased sales and growing its market share as Tesco, Asda and Morrisons all saw sales fall. Difficult conditions continued for the industry, with total grocery market sales in the 12 weeks to 6 December up by only 0.1% compared to the same period last year. The latest period represented the lowest growth since June and was the ninth consecutive month where sales have increased by less than 1%, Kantar said. Despite that, Sainsbury’s Tesco and Morrisons all featured in the market’s biggest risers.

Anglo American was one of the biggest fallers of the day after JP Morgan slashed its price target on the company from 450p to 265p. The invbestment bank also maintained its underweight rating and said the mining company’s strategy faces significant hurdles. “The strategy of the last two years has been beefed up slightly, but still delivers a -12% FCF yield in 2016 at spot (-36% at spot -10%) and a ~$4bn capital shortfall for an investment grade credit rating. The one they would like to pursue, shrinking employees and assets 66% but retaining 66% of EBITDA, will involve delicate negotiations with a range of stakeholders, including the South African government.”

FTSE 100 - Risers

Old Mutual (OML) 167.10p 5.89%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 3,709.00p 5.34%
Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) 1,484.00p 4.95%
GKN (GKN) 293.50p 4.67%
Schroders (SDR) 2,800.00p 4.56%
Mondi (MNDI) 1,328.00p 4.16%
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 246.60p 4.09%
St James's Place (STJ) 964.50p 4.05%
Tesco (TSCO) 148.80p 4.02%
Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 145.70p 3.92%