FTSE 100 movers: Computacenter boosted by upgrade; Croda goes ex-div

(Sharecast News) - London's FTSE 100 was down 0.7% at 10,801.28 in afternoon trade on Thursday. Computacenter was the top riser on the index after Peel Hunt upgraded the stock to 'buy' from 'add' and hiked the price target to 6,000p from 4,400p as it said there was "more to come".

The broker said that given the increasing focus on compute build-out and historical H1/H2weighting, it is lifting its FY26 adjusted pre-tax profit forecast by 8% to £350m, versus consensus expectations of £337m.

Peel Hunt said expansionary comments from key customers over the summer, and improving monetisation, increase its conviction on a multi-year view.

"Hence, we increase adjusted EBIT forecasts for FY 27E by 10% to £394m (consensus: £364m) and FY 28E by 11% to £427m (consensus: £385m)," it said.

The broker said its conviction is now for a materially higher spend in FY 27E for key customers, versus FY26.

"We are cognisant of the risks related to hyperscale visibility, but believe improving monetisation will re-enforce their spending targets," it said.

Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust - which has a 5.5% holding in Nvidia - rallied after solid quarterly results from the US chip maker.

On the downside, Croda, Haleon and Glencore all lost ground as they traded without entitlement to the dividend.

FTSE 100 - Risers

Computacenter (CCC) 5,525.00p 6.14% London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) 8,950.00p 2.92% Compass Group 11 (CPG) 30.76p 2.33% Halma (HLMA) 3,690.00p 2.05% The Sage Group (SGE) 1,078.00p 1.79% Airtel Africa (AAF) 342.40p 1.42% Investec (INVP) 648.00p 1.33% Relx plc (REL) 2,617.00p 1.31% Diploma (DPLM) 7,435.00p 1.16% Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 1,481.50p 0.99%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Entain (ENT) 514.00p -3.05% LondonMetric Property (LMP) 189.20p -2.82% Autotrader Group (AUTO) 526.20p -2.45% Croda International (CRDA) 3,393.00p -2.05% Diageo (DGE) 1,702.50p -1.93% Haleon (HLN) 366.30p -1.88% Glencore (GLEN) 591.20p -1.86% Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) 4,588.00p -1.63% SSE (SSE) 2,377.00p -1.57% Vodafone Group (VOD) 116.05p -1.49%