Centamin PLC, Costain Group PLC and Galliford Try plc are all on the up.
The FTSE 100 is continuing its New Year surge, with no sign of it faltering so far -- today it is up 35 points to 6,088, at the time of writing. After a lengthy wait for the index of top UK stocks to break the 6,000 barrier, maybe 6,100 will only be a further few days away.
Fools, of course, don't place any meaning in absolute index values, and are more interested in the performance of individual companies. Here are three that are doing well today:
Centamin
Following on from legal wranglings that caused a couple of sharp share price drops in the last quarter of 2012, it's nice to see the Centamin Egypt (LSE: CEY) price being moved by actual company performance.
This time it's fourth-quarter preliminary production results from the company's Sukari gold mine, which beat expectations and resulted in a 45% increase over the same quarter last year (and a 40% rise over the third quarter this year). The share price responded by climbing 5.9p (13.4%) to 50p.
Costain
Costain Group (LSE: COST) made a 6.7p (2.6%) gain to reach 263p on the news that the company has been awarded a new contract by Network Rail for the next phase of the West Coast power supply upgrade. The contract goes to a joint venture between Costain, Alstom and Babcock, and should enable the West Coast main line to carry more frequent services.
Unlike some in its sector, the engineer has seen its shares doing pretty well, with the price rising nearly 25% over the past 12 months.
Galliford Try
Housebuilder and construction group Galliford Try (LSE: GFRD) got a nice boost from today's trading update, with the share price putting on 15p (2%) to 786p. That takes it up around 65% over the past 12 months, as the whole sector is recovering strongly.
Galliford told us that a rise in revenues will bring in half-year profit in excess of previous board expectations, and that the firm's net debt has been reduced to £60 million from £69.8 million at the same stage last year.
Finally, useful daily gains from shares can all play their part in making you your first million. But the real secret to becoming rich from shares is simple long-term investing in fundamentally sound companies, and letting steady growth and dividends power your wealth upwards.
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> Alan does not own any shares mentioned in this article.
