Gloom deepens in financial sector

Published on Friday 12 December 2008 20:04

SCOTS STOCKS

STANDARD Life suffered a second straight fall after Morgan Stanley downgraded its shares from "outperform" to "underperform", as part of a wider assessment of the UK insurance sector. Shares fell 13p to 255p.

Aberdeen Asset Management fell 5 per cent to 95p on rumours that it is close to securing a deal to buy part of the asset management business of Credit Suisse.

Quayle Munro, the boutique investment bank based in Edinburgh was unchanged on 312.5p despite revealing that Uberior Investments, part of Halifax Bank of Scotland, had liquidated its stake of more than 8 per cent. All of the shares in the Aim-listed company were taken up by staff at the bank at a price of 300p.

Debt services company Invocas continued its rise after giving notice of strong recent trading on Wednesday. Shares in the Edinburgh-based company, which climbed 29 per cent on Thursday rose a further 8 per cent or 2.5p to 33.5p.

Temporary power provider Aggreko climbed 17.5p to 430.25 after updating the market that trading in the final quarter of the year remained strong and that pre-tax profits would be slightly ahead of expectations.

Shares in Robert Wiseman, down 8.4 per cent to 294p, and Irn-Bru maker AG Barr, down 25p to 1,170p, fell despite FTSE-250 tracker funds being required to pick up the shares ahead of their promotions next week.

Weir Group, the Glasgow-based engineering group lost most of Thursday's gains, dropping 7.1 per cent to 342.25p on fears for its exposure to the mining sector.