Reuters: Hot Stocks: British shares flat; unease over signals on Cyprus dominates

Reuters: Hot Stocks Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

British shares flat; unease over signals on Cyprus dominates Mar 26th 2013, 12:38 Tue Mar 26, 2013 8:38am EDT * FTSE 100 up 0.79 points in midday trade * Banks gain for the first time since 1st Cyprus bailout package * Aberdeen leads gainers on post-results upgrades * ENRC provides main drag after writedown By Alistair Smout LONDON, March 26 (Reuters) - British shares were flat at midsession on Tuesday, with uncertainty over the wider implications of the Cyprus bailout dominating trade as under-pressure banks rose for the first time in more than a week. Volumes on Britain's top share index, the FTSE 100, were thin, as details of the last-minute deal to save the island from bankruptcy remained hazy and Cypriot banks stayed shut. On Monday, the index opened strongly but turned negative after the head of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers, Jeoren Dijsselbloem, said the Cyprus deal represented a template for the rest of the region. "There's a little bit of brushing aside of Cyprus today after those Eurogroup comments weighed yesterday," Will Hedden, sales trader at IG Index, said. "I'm not blown away by the volume, though, and I think people are still cautious about the whole situation." Volume was 37.5 percent of its 90 day daily average, and Hedden said that, out of IG clients with positions on the FTSE, 65 percent were short, indicating they expected near term weakness. In a sign of apprehension, the FTSE 100 pared earlier gains after the European Commission said large depositors could be bailed-in for future bank rescues, as they were in Cyprus. The index was flat at 1206 GMT, up 0.79 points at 6,379.17 points in choppy trade. Banks gained for the first time since March 14, having lost 5.3 percent since the first deal to bail out Cyprus, which involved a levy on all deposits rather than just on large, uninsured ones, was unveiled a week ago. Financials, a broad-based sector which includes banks, asset managers and insurers, added 5.5 percent to the index, with Aberdeen Asset Management leading gainers. Aberdeen rose 3.6 percent after price target increases from Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, Exane BNP and UBS after a trading update yesterday, when it announced inflows of 3.5 billion pounds ($5.3 billion) for the first two months of the year. Shares in Britain's fourth-biggest grocer Wm Morrison Supermarkets also benefited from an upgrade, rising 2.9 percent, the top riser on the FTSE 100 after Citigroup upgraded its recommendation on the company to "buy" from "neutral". "Morrison has the strongest economic model of the three listed UK (grocery) operators with higher combination of asset turn and margin," Citi says in a note. "Over the long term we think Morrison is well positioned to extend its superior economic model to southern England, where it remains under-represented." Miner ENRC slumped 4 percent while mid-cap peer Kazakhmys shed 10.4 percent after Kazakhmys said it had taken a $2.22 billion impairment on the value of its stake in ENRC. Wolseley provided another drag on the FTSE 100, falling 3.4 percent after a 20 percent drop in interim pre-tax profits, with earnings hurt by the weak European economy. (Additional reporting by David Brett; Editing by John Stonestreet) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions