UK Stocks Mixed In Cautious Trade

(RTTNews) - U.K. stocks are turning in a mixed performance on Thursday with investors weighing the Middle East situation and rising oil prices amid a lack of meaningful progress in U.S.-Iran peace talks.

Absence of fresh economic data or corporate news from the domestic front render the mood cautious.

The benchmark FTSE 100 was up 8.11 points or 0.08% at 10,713.37 nearly half an hour past noon. The index had dropped to 10,664.50 earlier in the day.

JS Sports Fashion is rising more than 3%. Sainsbury (J) is gaining 2.3%. Marks & Spencer, Ithaca Energy, Diploma, Haleon, Diageo, British American Tobacco, Tesco, Coca-Cola HBC and Vodafone Group are up 1.5%-2%.

BP, Associated British Foods, Antofagasta, United Utilities, Centrica, Bunzl, Centrica, National Grid and Glencore are up 1%-1.4%.

Raspberry Pi Holdings shares are soaring 11.5% after the company said second-half volumes were rising and that memory inventories remained sufficient to meet annual targets.

Standard Life, St. James's Place, Rentokil Initial and Kingfisher are declining by 3%-3.7%.

Computacenter, AutoTrader Group, Investec, Pershing Square Holdings, Aberdeen Group and ICG are down 1.5%-2.7%. Johnson Matthey fell about 1%. The British specialty chemicals and sustainable technologies company said it would commence a share repurchase program to buy back up to a maximum consideration of £200 million common shares.

Rolls-Royce Holdings, BAE Systems, Babcock International, Polar Capital Technology Trust and 3i Group are also notably lower.