Renishaw
One of the biggest rises on the board this morning was
Renishaw, who issued a
half year update earlier in the day. Despite some weakness being seen in
terms of revenues and profitability, the stable outlook, sector diversification
and optimistic outlook appears to have reassured the market. The underlying was
up around 21% mid-morning, taking the stock to levels not seen in over six
months.
BP
Oil giant BP saw its shares add more than 5% this morning,
lifting itself to the top of the FTSE-100 as a result. Having delivered a bumper
set of profits for the full year and with management committing to turn the
business into a “higher value company”, investor sentiment was further buoyed
by news that BP was also commencing a $1.75bn share buy-back scheme.
Virgin
Money UK
Virgin Money posted a Q1
trading update this morning which left the market little moved. Shares were
around 1% higher in morning trade but the lender did have a couple of key lines
in the release. First up, mortgage lending is almost back at pre-pandemic
levels, whilst the bank also noted that unsecured borrowing was also ticking
higher, with this being seen largely amongst existing customers, perhaps
hinting that there’s a little more confidence creeping back in.
