Market overview: Aveva up after CS raises target price

LONDON (ShareCast) - 1125: Shares (Frankfurt: DI6.F - news) in Aveva continue to dance around six-month highs, amid renewed takeover talk and Tuesday's results. An 'outperform' rating from Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS - news) is helping today, despite a mixed write-up. With its full-year numbers in line, the Swiss bank raised its target price to 2,200p from 1,800p reflecting share price strength across the sector. This was despite acknowledging that oil and gas markets clearly remain fragile and "any growth will be hard to achieve". Consequently, it has downgrade 2016 earnings per share by 9% nearer to consensus. On bid speculation, a note from Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) pointed out that an interview with the company's CEO Richard Longdon on Tuesday had "tempered the excitement around a potential near-term bid for the company". 1050: Citi believes oil prices above $60 per barrel could prompt a recovery in US tight-oil production. Hence, it has lowered its forecast for fourth quarter 2015 WTI futures to $54. 0930: As expected, at its last rate setting meeting the MPC (KOSDAQ: 050540.KQ - news) voted to keep its monetary policy settings unchanged, although two of its members indicated their decision had been finely balanced between that and pushing for a rise in rates.

0915: Shares in Vodafone are top of the leaderboard following comments by Liberty Global (NasdaqGS: LBTYA - news) 's chairman John Malone that the UK telecoms giant would be a "great fit".

0830: Stocks have begun the morning slightly lower, tracking a dip on Wall Street overnight. On Tuesday, the Dax-Xetra closed out its best two-day gain since January. The Nikkei-225 hit a fresh 15-year high this morning on the back of better-than-expected GDP figures out in Tokyo. In parallel, research from Nomura according to whom the next QE move from the Bank of Japan may include ETF purchases is seen as having contributed to the move higher in stocks. Last night, the ECB´s Coeure told a selected audience the central bank´s would be frontloaded over the summer to take into account seasonal trading patterns. The latest set FOMC minutes due out tonight will be closely scrutinised. Greek officials have reportedly said the country may not be able to make a 5 June deadline for a payment to the IMF. FTSE 100 down 5 points to 6,990.89.