SMN drops most on 100

Most European equities markets were higher Wednesday, but London’s FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 both saw declines on the session.

The 100 was down 0.29 percent to 3,900.25 while the 250 dropped 0.51 percent to 6,371.11.

Engineering company Smiths Group (LSE: SMN) turned in the worst performance on the 100 as it dropped 14.36 percent, while Hochschild Mining dropped 9.78 percent on the 250 for the worst day on that index.

Lloyds Banking Group (LSE: LLOY) led winners on the 100 with a gain of 6.55 percent, followed by Barclays Bank (LSE: BARC; NYSE: BCS; TYO: 8642), which added 4.75 percent, but other London banks were lower on the session.

Insurers were also lower, led by Aviva (LSE: AV) with a decline of 11.61 percent while Legal & General Group (LSE: LGEN) was down 7.24 percent and Amlin (LSE: AML) dropped 5.76 percent.

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 was 0.37 percent higher to 743.57 while the CAC-40 added 0.66 percent to 2,893.45, the Dax was up 0.86 percent to 4,223.29 and the IBEX gained 1.04 percent to 8,072.4.

Banks were mixed on the Dax and the CAC-40.

Commerzbank (FWB: CBK) led the Dax as it added 15.76 percent but Deutsche Bank (FWB: DBK; NYSE: DB) was 1.32 percent lower, while over on the CAC-40 Societe Generale (Euronext: GLE) added 2.49 percent but BNP Paribas (Euronext: BNP; TYO: 8665) was down 2.28 percent and Credit Agricloe (Euronext: ACA) dropped 3.57 percent.

The automobile manufacturing sector was also mixed as Peugeot (Euronext: UG) led losers on the CAC-40 with a decline of 5 percent but Renault (Euronext: RNO) added 4.02 percent and over on the Dax Volkswagen (FWB: VOW) gained 10.7 percent on the session.

Markets were mixed in the Asia-Pacific region as well.

In Tokyo, the Topix index added 0.71 percent to 818.49 and the Mothers market was up 3.53 percent to 308.7 but the Nikkei 225 was down 0.1 percent to 8,479.99 as exporters declined on profit-taking and on slides in New York markets on Tuesday.

Banks were also lower, with Mitsubishi UFJ (TYO: 8306; NYSE: MTU) down 0.6 percent as Shinsei Bank (TYO: 8303) dropped 2.6 percent when it said it would issue preferred securities to raise more cash.

South Korea’s Kospi added 0.6 percent to 1,229.02 while in Australia the Sydney Ordinaries and the S&P/ASX200 each gained 0.82 percent, to 3,546.2 and 3,609.3 respectively, the Taiex was up 1.99 percent to 5,346.38 in Taiwan and India’s Sensex was 2.08 percent higher to 9,667.9.

Decliners included the Straits Times Index with a decline of 0.86 percent to 1,691.68, while the Shanghai Composite was down 2 percent to 2,291.56 and the Hang Seng dropped 2.07 percent to 13,622.11.

At just before 2 p.m. in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.67 percent to 7,711.66 while the Nasdaq Composite had added 0.19 percent to 1,519.34 and the S&P 500 had gained 0.48 percent to 809.98.

Gains came on several reports that made it look as if the economic crisis might have bottomed out.

Durable goods orders were reported to have gone up 3.4 percent in February rather than declining by 2 percent as had been expected, while new home sales were up 4.7 percent in February even though they had also been forecast to decline.

Additionally, mortgage applications were said to have gone up by 32.2 percent in the week ending 20 March, but 78.5 percent of those were applications to refinance existing loans.

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