Weir Group is one of those companies that, on any given day, seems just as likely to be the FTSE's largest faller as the FTSE's biggest climber.
Today is a session for one of its more positive showings with the shares up by 3% at 1985p after the engineering firm said it had acquired a specialist US valve maker, Novatech, for $176m (£113m).
That may not sound massively exciting, but be fair: this is the engineering sector. The reason why investors are taking notice is that the purchase boosts the company's exposure to the shale oil and gas market in North America, which is booming.
Here's the analysts paid to know about these things from Bank of America Merrill Lynch: "This small bolt on fits with management's strategy to build on its oil and gas position, at an attractive price. Weir has been under pressure recently due to falls in the US natural gas price. We think this focus has been misplaced given the ongoing shift to oil fracking. We remain comfortable with our estimates given recent capacity commentary from oil services stocks and believe valuation is attractive given the medium term growth outlook".
