Large-cap stocks made gains shortly after the open

The close of European markets marks the end of another day of whipsawing prices in reaction to Syria news flow. After large-cap stocks made gains shortly after the open, traders sold index futures with speed as news of an explosion near the Russian Embassy in Damascus temporarily tested confidence. Buyers were quickly overwhelmed and major bourses were showing losses for the session.

Equity markets, however, pared losses as soon as the news became understood to have little material impact on prices. Shares recovered in Europe to close out the day around one per cent higher on average.

The age of high frequency trading and market making makes reaction to this type of news brutally fast. Often otders have been filled before every participant knows what happened. Traders brave enough to offer liquidity at the bottom have been rewarded so far. But their luck could run out.

Risers:

 

InterContinental Hotels                  

UBS upgrades InterContinental Hotels Group to buy from neutral and raises its price target to 2200p from 2050p. Notes an improvement on a number of its concerns as well as recent share price weakness.

 

Marks & Spencer

HSBC upgrades Marks & Spencer to overweight from neutral and target to 550p from 490p. Says M&S is the most operationally geared to play on the UK consumer recovery compared to peers.

 

easyJet

Despite shares being dragged lower yesterday by Ryanair’s profit warning, Low-cost airline easyJet have announced a 4% rise in passenger numbers to more than 6.1 million. They receive a broker upgrade to buy from add with price target of 1600p at Numis Securities.

 

Dixons

Dixons was the top 250 riser after announcing in line earnings but will be disposing any unprofitable units as UK sales gain. They are close to exiting its online unit PIXmania and have agreed to sell its Turkish operations to help enable it to focus on UK growth.

 

ICAP

Morgan Stanley raises ICAP to overweight from underweight and lifts its target price to 418p from 283p. Says despite expected near-term seasonal weakness, curve steepening and the likelihood of increased volatility increases positive earnings revision risk. With two thirds of revenues derived from rates/FX, ICAP is the most geared to play cyclical improvements, it adds

 

SuperGroup

The British company behind Superdry fashion brand have announced group sales in the first three months of the year had jumped by a quarter and that it was confident of meeting full-year expectations. The interim management statement showed total group sales for the quarter rose 25.7% to £75 million.

 

Go-Ahead

The provider of passenger transport Thursday posted a 10.25 drop in pre-tax profit during the full year-end, the overall results are slightly ahead of the board's expectations and the company is progressing well towards its bus operating

 

Communisis

The provider of personalized customer communication services have acquired the entire share capital of Editions Publishing Ltd, a content marketing agency in the financial services sector on a cash free, debt free basis of 5.87 million pounds

 

Fallers

 

GlaxoSmithKline

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) said Thursday its cancer drug MAGE-A3 didn't meet the first co-primary endpoint in the Phase III melanoma trial, but the trial will continue until the second co-primary endpoint is assessed.

 

Melrose Industries

UBS downgrades Melrose Industries to neutral from buy and lifts its target price to 305p from 300p. Notes the stock has reached its target price, with improved margin guidance from the Elster acquisition coming faster than expected. Says the group is now trading at a 10% premium to the sector, which is beginning to feel like a stretch.

 

Lamprell

Nomura downgrades European oil services to bearish from neutral. Says a slower rate of global capex growth and lower returns on projects suggests consensus 2014 EPS need to come down by up to 15%. Lamprell cut to reduce from Neutral by Nomura.