The top-share index has been in reverse gear for most of the day, even dipping below 5700 at one point, but oilfield services group Petrofac has been defying the trend Credit Suisse turned positive on the stock.

"We believe the stock has performed poorly on a lack of project awards over the summer period and elevated expectations for the IES business. We believe the next few months will be better: awards should step up, thanks to less instability in the Middle East, and the payoff of extensive marketing efforts in southeast Asia and amongst oil majors," the broker said on Tuesday morning.

Credit Suisse has upgraded the stock to "outperform" from "neutral" and lifted its target price to 1800p from 1750p.

The same broker turned neutral on Admiral yesterday, and that decision is still wieghing on the share price performance of the car insurer today.

Credit Suisse worries that Admiral is running out of steam and it is not convinced that there is further scope for material upside potential for the share price.

"In particular, we believe near term sentiment is likely to be constrained by weaker data-points on vehicle count growth and industry pricing trends, while there is also potential for uncertainty to increase as various regulatory bodies conduct reviews of the industry. While operating margin expansion can offset these pressures, this is already reflected in our forecasts and upside still appears limited," the Swiss bank said.

Steel giant Evraz is another one of today's worst performers after Credit Suisse said that downward trend in iron ore and coal prices last week "goes in line with our view that risk for profitability of integrated producers and bulk miners (NLMK, Mechel, NWR, Kumba, Evraz, Severstal) is on the downside."

FTSE 100 - Risers
Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 1,543.00p +1.78%
Old Mutual (OML) 168.70p +0.84%
Resolution Ltd. (RSL) 216.10p +0.70%
Pennon Group (PNN) 739.50p +0.48%
Schroders (SDR) 1,438.00p +0.42%
Capita (CPI) 726.50p +0.41%
Diageo (DGE) 1,756.00p +0.29%
Serco Group (SRP) 570.00p +0.26%
Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 278.80p +0.22%
BT Group (BT.A) 222.80p +0.13%

FTSE 100 - Fallers
Xstrata (XTA) 921.60p -2.70%
Vodafone Group (VOD) 178.80p -2.40%
Land Securities Group (LAND) 776.00p -2.21%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 2,735.00p -2.16%
Admiral Group (ADM) 1,126.00p -2.09%
Evraz (EVR) 222.20p -2.07%
Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,328.00p -1.99%
Aggreko (AGK) 2,292.00p -1.93%
Next (NXT) 3,576.00p -1.87%
ITV (ITV) 82.35p -1.85%


JH

Related share prices
Admiral Group (ADM) share price
Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) share price
Evraz (EVR) share price