Any fears harboured by investors over Playtech’s ability to complete its planned takeovers were forgotten amid the gambling software company’s sterling third-quarter results.
Overall revenues rocketed 47 per cent to €170.9m (£122m), blowing analyst forecasts out of the water. Deutsche Bank’s prediction, for instance, was €35m short.
Playtech’s revenues have already matched the €456.9m generated in the whole of last year.
The results propelled the shares to the top of the FTSE 250, up 80.5p to 873p, helping the company to cancel out some of the falls suffered over the past few months after hitting an all-time high in July.
The gloom stemmed from uncertainty surrounding its deals for the financial trading businesses AvaTrade and Plus500 – for which it is still awaiting regulatory approval.
Broker Peel Hunt said: “If the AvaTrade and Plus500 acquisitions seemed a taxing affair, Friday’s results showed no signs of fatigue or distraction.”
Downgrades from Liberum Capital hurt BHP Billiton, down 44p at 1,053p, and Rio Tinto, 57.5p weaker at 2,357.5p Liberum’s analysts reckon iron ore will tumble further next year, to $40 a tonne, as Chinese imports of the steel component turn negative. That would force BHP and Rio into drastic moves in their oil, aluminium and copper businesses to protect profits.
Miners dug in their heels and sent blue-chip stocks into reverse, with the FTSE 100 slipping 42 points to 6,395.8.
The knee and hip- replacement group Smith & Nephew was among the casualties: it fell 54p to 1,096p when third-quarter sales missed analysts’ estimates.
Diageo trickled 16p higher to 1,885.5p after Credit Suisse upgraded the maker of Johnnie Walker from neutral to outperform. “We believe Diageo’s increased focus on volume growth can help draw a line under two years of earnings downgrades,” the broker said.
On AIM, Falkland Oil and Gas tanked to 13p, losing 7.25p after failing to find commercial oil at a well off the islands, which Mirabaud Securities called a “hammer blow”.
