FTSE 250 movers: Miners sink back down while NCC flies

The FTSE 250 was trading comfortably in the green on Thursday afternoon, as housing and property companies delivered a surprise bounce from house price data and growing expectations of a Bank of England interest rate cut.

FTSE 250

20,359.21

17:14 13/11/24

n/a

Cyber security company NCC Group was on the up after reporting a set of impressive results on Thursday morning, with a 56% increase in revenues for the year to 31 May to £209.1m.

Adjusted pre-tax profit rose 45% to £37m, with the dividend being pushed up to 4.65p per share.

“The threat of being hacked or having valuable data stolen continues to grow at a seemingly unstoppable pace,” said group CEO Rob Cotton.

“With our global reach and increased product range, we remain tightly focused on exploiting the opportunities to deliver sustained long term growth.”

Estate agency marketplace and technology firm Zoopla was also rising, a day after its price target was trimmed by analysts at Morgan Stanley to 300p from 310p.

The broker held the stock at ‘equalweight’ and lifted its earnings estimate for 2017 by 3%, however.

“Operationally, we see Zoopla as most at risk given its weaker competitive position,” the analysts said, comparing the stock to rival Rightmove.

Precious metals miners were on their way down, having flown high amid Brexit uncertainty for much of the week as investors flocked to safe havens such as gold.

Hochschild Mining and Centamin both featured among the afternoon’s biggest losers.

TalkTalk Telecom was also under pressure, a day after Deutsche Bank initiated its coverage of the phone and broadband provider with a ‘buy’ rating and a price target of 300p.

A number of companies were also featuring after going ex-dividend, including Atkins (WS), BGEO Group, Booker, Dairy Crest, Entertainment One, Homeserve, Safestore, TalkTalk Telecom, Telecom Plus, Vedanta Resources and Workspace.