Financial firms are in the market's sights, and this time it is not the banking sector.
Icap, the interdealer broker, has jumped 16.1p to 340.1p, a near 5% rise, after it said its BrokerTec and EBS fixed income and foreign exchange trading platforms saw a 17% jump in average daily volumes last month, compared to January 2012.
Meanwhile analysts at Barclays repeated their overweight rating on the company.
That recommenation comes in a hefty note on financial companies. Asset managers are the biggest beneficiaries, with Hargreaves Lansdown up 32.5p to 727p and Aberdeen Asset Management adding 6.2p to 407.3p. Barclays said:
The trends that drove Aberdeen's outperformance in 2012 of rising revenue margins and strong equity inflows are likely to continue. We raise our price target to 470p [from 360p]. Hargreaves Lansdown, in our opinion, is also likely to surprise on the upside on flows, whilst displaying a low degree of revenue margin erosion. We raise our price target to 820p [from 800p].
