UK shares advanced on Wednesday as Kingfisher, Europe's largest home improvement retailer, beat profit expectations and investors dipped back into the travel sector. The bluechip FTSE 100 was up 6.37 points, or 0.1 percent at 6,198.50 points by the close. Trade was quiet, with volumes at just three-quarters of the 90-day average. Kingfisher, which trades as B&Q and Screwfix in Britain and as Castorama and Brico Depot in France and other markets, gained 5.9 percent on the back of a forecast-beating 0.3 percent rise in annual profit. It had announced a strategy overhaul in January.
"There was some initial disdain for Kingfisher's turnaround plan but today's results confirm the company has gotten a head start over its rival Homebase," said Jasper Lawler, market analyst at CMC Markets. Sky Plc also rose 2.4 percent after investment bank Exane BNP Paribas upgraded its rating on the stock to "outperform" from "neutral". Investors bought back into travel stocks, which recovered after a sell-off in the previous session following deadly attacks in Brussels.
Shares in cruise operator Carnival, International Hotels Group, tour operator TUI and airlines easyJet and IAG were all up between 0.7 percent and 1.9 percent. Mid-cap Thomas Cook, which was also pulled lower on Tuesday by news of a fall in bookings in the previous session, regained ground to trade up 2.9 percent. "You have the usual bit of aggressive bargain-hunting coming through in these sectors, (they were) quite heavily sold down yesterday," IG analyst Chris Beauchamp said. Miners and oil & gas stocks fell, as metals and crude prices suffered from a rise in the dollar and concerns about a market oversupply. Mid-cap William Hill slumped 11 percent, its biggest daily loss in 7-1/2 years, after issuing a profit warning for 2016.
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