Financial News

LONDON (ShareCast) - There were big gains for the market Wednesday, with healthy results pushing the mid-cap index sharply higher.

Sales slumped at Inchcape (LSE: INCH.L - news) during the five months ended 31 May, but the car dealer's shares still motored ahead.

It said second quarter pre-tax profit should be "significantly" ahead of the £20m reported for the first quarter.

There were also chunky gains for McBride (LSE: MCB.L - news) . The own private label household and personal care products supplier, expects underlying profits this year of not less than £35m following better than expected fourth quarter revenues.

That trumped analysts' forecasts for about £33m.

Stagecoach also travelled north after boosting full-year profit and revenue despite the bus and train firm suffering a slowdown in revenue and passenger volume growth in the second half.

Profit before tax, excluding intangible asset expenses and exceptional items for the year ended 30 April 2009 jumped to £196.4m from £174.4m and to £170.8m on a reported basis, up from £167.3m in 2008.

FTSE 250 (news) - Risers Yell Group (LSE: YELL.L - news) (YELL) 27.00p +12.50% Inchcape (INCH) 18.25p +12.31% Mcbride (MCB (Frankfurt: A0ND6X - news) ) 137.00p +11.38% Hochschild Mining (LSE: HOC.L - news) (HOC) 283.25p +7.29% Stagecoach Group (SGC) 126.00p +7.01% Enterprise Inns (LSE: ETI.L - news) (ETI (A024810.KQ - news) ) 127.25p +6.93% Punch Taverns (LSE: PUB.L - news) (PUB) 108.50p +6.63% Cookson Group (CKSN) 244.75p +6.53% Marston's (MARS) 119.00p +6.25% Morgan Sindall (LSE: MGNS.L - news) (MGNS) 688.50p +6.09%

FTSE 250 - Fallers Domino Printing (DNO) 229.25p -6.14% Electrocomponents (LSE: ECM.L - news) (ECM) 144.00p -4.00% Dairy Crest Group (LSE: DCG.L - news) (DCG) 306.00p -3.47% Dunelm (DNLM) 211.50p -3.20% Melrose Resources (LSE: MRS.L - news) (MRS) 254.75p -3.14% COLT Telecom Group S.A. (COLT) 103.75p -2.58% Carpetright (LSE: CPR.L - news) (CPR) 569.50p -2.48% Cranswick (LSE: CWK.L - news) (CWK) 584.50p -2.42% SDL International (SDL (LSE: SDL.L - news) ) 305.50p -2.40% Brown (N.) Group (BWNG) 214.75p -2.39%