Borders & Southern Petroleum plc (LON: BOR), Anite plc (LON: AIE) and MITIE Group PLC (LON: MTO) react well to good news.
It didn't take long for the FTSE 100 to break its next psychologically-but-otherwise-unimportant barrier, as the index of top UK stocks topped 6,300 this morning, standing on 6,301 points as I write.
The FTSE 100 is now up around 6.5% since the start of the year, and in that short time has beaten its achievement for the whole of 2012. Obviously we can't expect this rate of growth to continue for long, but could it indicate the start of the next long-term bull run?
Plenty of individual companies are rising every day, as they do in bullish times, but some are doing better than the index due to good news. Here are three whose latest updates have sent their prices up:
Borders & Southern
Oil and gas explorer Borders & Southern (LSE: BOR) got a welcome lift this morning after releasing an operations update, with its shares picking up 3p (12.7%) to 27p -- though the shares are still down around 60% over the past 12 months.
The key news is an update on the Darwin prospect in the South Falklands Basin, where the company reported deposits of gas condensate last year. Now, after further investigation, the initial "mid case" estimate of 190 million barrels at the site has been upped to 210 million barrels, making the discovery look commercially viable.
Anite
News of an acquisition sent Anite (LSE: AIE) shares sharply upwards this morning, putting on 6p (4.3%) to 147p. The wireless and leisure sector software specialist is to buy the Propsim channel emulation product set from Finland's Elektrobit Corporation. The deal will cost £26 million, and will be settled in cash. The technology, which is used for emulation and testing of wireless products, is "a good fit with Anite's Handset Testing business", said chief executive Christopher Humphrey.
Anite's shares are up 50% since this time last year.
MITIE
MITIE Group (LSE: MTO) shares perked up 2.4p (1%) to 284p on the release of a third-quarter management statement. The outsourcing company says its performance is in line with current expectations, and expects the second half of the year to show higher revenue growth than the first half. Part of that is due to MITIE's acquisition of healthcare provider Enara Group in October, for £111 million. Performance is also boosted by a new five-year contract with Lloyds Banking Group.
If current forecasts are accurate, we should be seeing a year-end rise in earnings of 5% and a dividend yield of around 3.6%.
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> Alan does not own any shares mentioned in this article.
