London midday: Stocks rise as poll date is confirmed

6th Apr 2010 12:14

With official confirmation of a May 6 election date now received the market is enjoying an end to the uncertainty, though sentiment is tempered by the prospect of a hung parliament.Petrofac is leading the market higher on its first day of trading since demerging its UK Continental Shelf assets into a new company, Enquest.Other resource stocks are thriving, particularly the miners as copper surges past the $8,000 a tonne mark. Kazakhmys, ENRC and Vedanta are the best performers among the miners. Royal Bank of Scotland is going well on weekend reports that a Richard Branson bid is on the way for some of its unwanted parts.In economic news, the UK's construction sector expanded for the first time in more than two years last month. The Chartered Institute of Purchase and Supply/Markit construction PMI index rose to 53.1 in March from 48.5 the previous month. Testing and inspections firm Intertek is boosting its presence in the pharmaceutical and environmental markets with the acquisition of the regulatory and safety testing businesses of Ciba Expert Services (Ciba ES) from BASF.Steve Smith, chief executive of Northgate, the vehicle hire group, is to step down from the board. Smith had been scheduled to retire last year on 1 August.Also heading for the exit is Keith Chapman, chairman of home shopping and educational supplies group Findel.Connaught, the support services group which last month quashed takeover speculation, has confirmed that its £125m contract from Norwich County Council is now official after a legal challenge to the award was resolved. Pharmacy and GP services supplier Assura said it is no longer in takeover talks after the parties that had made the initial bid approach confirmed that they do not intend to pursue an offer.Two companies bearing bad news today are Printing.com and Endace. Specialist printing group Printing.com expects its full-year results to be 'marginally' below market forecasts after recent trading softened while networking monitoring solutions provider Endace said its full-year results will be 'materially' below earlier expectations due to contract delays.There is better news from specialist utility contractor May Gurney, which expects this year's results to meet expectations, with new orders now at record levels.SOCO International said the second phase of development has begun on the Ca Ngu Vang oil and gas field, offshore Vietnam. The first well in the programme, CNV-6P-ST1, is expected to take around 60 days to drill.Shares in oil and gas explorer and producer Regal Petroleum jumped after it said production at its SV-58 Well in Ukraine had doubled since its last announcement in January.Things are going less well for Europa Oil and Gas, which remains perplexed at the poor production from its Hykeham-1 well, which lies on the PEDL150 licence near Lincoln.FTSE 100 - RisersPetrofac Ltd. (PFC) 1,249.00p +5.09%Admiral Group (ADM) 1,399.00p +5.03%Man Group (EMG) 252.40p +3.27%Kazakhmys (KAZ) 1,631.00p +3.10%Eurasian Natural Resources (ENRC) 1,258.00p +2.69%Amec (AMEC) 833.50p +2.52%Vedanta Resources (VED) 2,931.00p +2.38%Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 45.74p +2.33%Aggreko (AGK) 1,245.00p +2.22%Cobham (COB) 271.30p +2.18%FTSE 100 - FallersVodafone Group (VOD) 149.30p -1.58%Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 1,974.00p -1.50%Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) 1,094.00p -0.82%BAE Systems (BA.) 370.90p -0.78%AstraZeneca (AZN) 2,923.00p -0.78%British Airways (BAY) 247.20p -0.68%GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,250.00p -0.56%G4S (GFS) 264.60p -0.45%Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 3,634.00p -0.44%Wolseley (WOS) 1,590.00p -0.31%