FTSE 250 movers: Wizz flies higher; gold miners fall

(Sharecast News) - London's FTSE 250 was up 1.4% at 20,234.84 in afternoon trade on Friday. Budget airline Wizz Air, which has taken a hit recently due to concerns about the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, was among the top gainers. It also benefited from an upgrade to 'hold' at HSBC.

Cineworld rallied ahead of its full-year results next week. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: "2021 was another year disrupted by Covid restrictions, but the latest Spiderman film proved to be a big hit at the box office and should have given cinema operators a boost both in terms of earnings and public sentiment towards going to the big screen.

"The market will be very interested to know how Cineworld's trading has been so far in 2022. We've had two years of getting used to watching films on streaming platforms - it could be hard to wean people off this habit.

"This year hasn't seen any big blockbuster films released apart from The Batman, so one can only assume that Cineworld will provide optimistic comment mainly based on hope for titles released later this year, such as the latest in the Jurassic Park, Doctor Strange and Minions franchises, rather than celebrate ticket and popcorn sales year to date."

On the downside, gold miners Hochschild and Centamin both lost their shine as gold prices fell back.

Oanda analyst Craig Erlam said: "Gold has fallen more than 1% on the day and fallen further from the $2,000 level it briefly traded above earlier in the week. Putin's comments naturally contributed to the decline in the yellow metal which is now trading a little off the session lows. Improved risk appetite and lower commodity prices are obviously negative for gold.

"Whether we see that continue is another thing, both into the weekend and beyond. I'm struggling to be in any way optimistic on the back of Putin's comments and I expect there'll be plenty more setbacks in the coming weeks and months. Hopefully I'll be proven very wrong, at which point gold could have further to fall."

FTSE 250 - Risers

PureTech Health (PRTC) 208.00p 10.64% Wizz Air Holdings (WIZZ) 2,931.00p 8.04% Capita (CPI) 21.93p 7.98% Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings (AML) 877.00p 7.61% Cineworld Group (CINE) 35.11p 7.60% National Express Group (NEX) 253.80p 6.28% 888 Holdings (888) 197.10p 5.29% Weir Group (WEIR) 1,800.00p 5.02% Volution Group (FAN) 427.50p 4.65% Ibstock (IBST) 174.70p 4.55%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Hochschild Mining (HOC) 129.40p -6.77% Baltic Classifieds Group (BCG) 119.00p -4.80% Energean (ENOG) 989.50p -3.93% Centamin (DI) (CEY) 101.55p -3.70% Darktrace (DARK) 439.60p -3.34% Moonpig Group (MOON) 210.40p -2.41% Capricorn Energy (CNE) 191.00p -2.40% Drax Group (DRX) 705.50p -2.08% Convatec Group (CTEC) 177.60p -1.80% Kainos Group (KNOS) 1,238.00p -1.75%