Financial News

LONDON (ShareCast) - Banks are shining bright Thursday as hopes increase that American mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM - news) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE - news) won't need the US government to bail them out. All the big US investment banks are up again today after gaining yesterday.

UK peers joined in the fun, with Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) , HBOS (LSE: HBOS.L - news) and Royal Bank of Scotland in the blue.

Real (Frankfurt: BJU.F - news) estate giants British Land (LSE: BLND.L - news) and Land Securities (LSE: LAND.L - news) also improved following an article in the Financial Times that said Australian shopping centre owner Westfield had nearly filled its new White City shopping mall in west London

Miner Kazakhmys (LSE: KAZ.L - news) was in the doldrums though after it said poor weather and changes in the timing of sales hit first half revenue and earnings. That dragged rival miner ENRC lower.

Severn Trent (LSE: SVT.L - news) fell after Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS - news) cut the water group to 'sell' from 'neutral' with target price down to 1,396p from 1,585p. Scottish & Southern Energy and United Utilities (LSE: UU.L - news) also attracted sellers.

FTSE 100 - Risers Wolseley (LSE: WOS.L - news) (WOS) 445.25p +6.65% Barclays (BARC) 346.50p +4.92% RSA Insurance Group (RSA) 152.70p +4.73% Kingfisher (LSE: KGF.L - news) (KGF) 132.60p +4.66% Friends Provident (LSE: FP.L - news) (FP.) 97.10p +4.52% HBOS (HBOS) 305.75p +4.26% British Land Co (BLND) 755.00p +4.21% Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS (LSE: RBS.L - news) ) 231.00p +4.17% Land Securities Group (LAND) 1,342.00p +4.03% BT Group (LSE: BT-A.L - news) (BT.A) 171.80p +3.93%

FTSE 100 - Fallers Kazakhmys (KAZ) 1,305.00p -2.54% Eurasian Natural Resources (ENRC) 1,021.00p -2.11% Severn Trent (SVT (SVTV.PK - news) ) 1,376.00p -2.06% Imperial Tobacco Group (LSE: IMT.L - news) (IMT) 1,782.00p -1.66% Cairn Energy (LSE: CNE.L - news) (CNE) 2,869.00p -1.44% Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE (Frankfurt: A0RFBG - news) ) 1,451.00p -1.36% United Utilities Group (UU.) 711.50p -1.32% Tullow Oil (Dublin: TQW.IR - news) (TLW) 806.50p -1.29% Vedanta Resources (LSE: VED.L - news) (VED) 1,831.00p -1.19% British Energy Group (BGY) 719.50p -0.90%