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Market movers: Anglo American, easyJet, Globo, Shire, TXO

Published: 17:43 30 Jun 2014 AEST

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UK equities have made a half-hearted effort to follow the global trend and open higher.

The FTSE 100 has limped up 5 points to 6,763, with just over half of the index's constituents on the rise.

Airlines and miners are letting the side down. Low-cost airline easyJet (LON:EZJ), down 4.6%, is the biggest faller, after Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded it to 'underperform' from neutral. Sector peer Ryanair (LON:RYA), up 0.6%, goes the other way as Merrills upgrades it to 'neutral'.

In the mining sector, the big two - Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) and BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) - are the worst performers, but Anglo American (LON:AAL), up 1.1%, receives a lift from weekend press reports that it is planning a £2bn sell-off of assets.

Bid speculation continues to swirl around pharmaceuticals titan Shire (LON:SHP), with its suitor, AbbVie, said to be sending some executives across the Atlantic to launch a charm offensive.

Shire's shares nudge up 0.8%, helped by news that the company expects to receive a further US$162m refund later this year from the Canadian tax authorities.

Radio frequency specialist LightwaveRF (LON:LWRF) spiked sharply on Thursday on the back of news it has received approval to become an Apple supplier, and the shares are on the march again today after it agreed in principle with Neonlite Electronic & Lighting (HK) for Neonlite to distribute the LightwaveRF range of wireless lighting controls to Neonlite's distribution network across 84 countries under their Ingenium brand.

The shares shoot up 31% to 46p, having been trading at 30p at the start of last week.

Horticulture products producer Sinclair (William) is blooming after half-yearly results that were unimpressive, save for the fact that it is to receive £21.25mln from a settlement over the buy-out of its land interests and peat extraction rights at Bolton Fell and the resultant closure of the factory at the site.

For a company with annual turnover of £22mln that is almost a year's worth of revenue, and the shares reacted by advancing 6.7% to 56p.
Mobile phone software specialist Globo (LON:GBO) has acquired the services division of Sourcebits, a developer of mobile applications and proprietary products for enterprise custom.

The market liked the earnings enhancing acquisition, which will deepen the company's footprint in the US and give it a large development team in Bangalore, India; shares rose 5% to 58p.

Interim results from investment company TXO (LON:TXO) prompted a mark-down in the company's shares to 0.18p from 0.23p. The post-tax loss deepened a little to US$861,819 from US$807,642, in line with management expectations.

The reporting period did not include the first sale of re-processed waste oil by one of its portfolio companies, Grand Bahama Group.

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