* FTSE 100 set for fifth day of gains
* Citigroup results eyed, BoA posts lower quarterly profit
By Tricia Wright
LONDON, July 17 (Reuters) - London's top share index rose at
midday on Friday, on track for a fifth straight day of gains,
boosted by oils, miners and banks, as investors cautiously await
results from Citi <C.N>.
By 1145 GMT the FTSE 100 <> was up 20.50 points or 0.5
percent at 4,382.34, set for its biggest weekly rise since
January after hitting a four-week high in the previous session.
Bank of America <BAC.N> became the next in a line of U.S.
companies unveiling second-quarter earnings, in the wake of
strong results from IBM <IBM.N>, Intel <INTC.O>, Goldman Sachs
<GS.N> and JPMorgan Chase <JPM.N>.
It posted a lower quarterly profit, hurt by a surge in
troubled loans as more credit card and mortgage customers fell
behind on payments.
"The (BoA) results look better, but that's in large part due
to cost cutting as they've lost baggage, which just shows they
were rather flabby before," said Philip Gillett at IG Index.
Citigroup's <C.N> earnings should provide the focus this
afternoon.
Energy stocks added the most points to the FTSE 100 index,
as crude prices remained above $61 a barrel <CLc1>.
BG Group <BG.L>, BP <BP.L>, Cairn Energy <CNE.L> and Royal
Dutch Shell <RDSa.L> added between 0.9 and 2.2 percent.
Mining stocks also enjoyed a rally. ENRC <ENRC.L> was the
biggest blue-chip gainer, up 5.5 percent, with Anglo American
<AAL.L>, BHP Billiton <BLT.L>, Kazakhmys <KAZ.L> and Rio Tinto
<RIO.L> adding 0.8-2.6 percent.
Vedanta Resources <VED.L> rose 3.5 percent after the
India-focused group said it planned to expand to steel
manufacturing with a partner, and boosted as Deutsche Bank
lifted its price target on the company to 1,440 pence from 1,419
pence.
Banks were also in positive territory, buoyed by strong
earnings from U.S. peers. Barclays <BARC.L>, HSBC <HSBA.L> and
Royal Bank of Scotland <RBS.L> rose 1.1-1.9 percent.
British Airways <BAY.L> also made progress, up 3.4 percent,
as the market responded well to plans by the airline to raise
around 600 million pounds through a combination of bondholder
debt and bank credit. []
BA also reported an operating loss of 100 million pounds for
the three months ending June 30, but analysts said this was
better than feared.
On the downside, Severn Trent <SVT.L> fell 1.8 percent as
Morgan Stanley cut its recommendation on the water company to
"underweight" from "equal weight".
A broker downgrade also weighed on distribution group Bunzl
<BNZL.L>, off 1.4 percent, as Banc of America-Merrill Lynch
downgraded its stance on the firm to "neutral" from "buy".
Elsewhere, engineering firm Invensys <ISYS.L> fell 2.2
percent, as it said reduced volumes in its short-cycle products
would impact first half performance. []
Defensive tobacco and pharmaceutical stocks were also lower,
with Imperial Tobacco <IMT.L> and GlaxoSmithKline <GSK.L> down
0.6 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively.
"Cyclicals and defensives are significantly undervalued at
current levels, so the market should be able to establish more
breadth in this quarter than we saw in the first half of the
year," said Darren Winder, head of macro and strategy research
at Cazenove.
"Cyclicals... are relatively small in the context of the
index, so it's really these big, large cap defensive names that
need to make some progress to take us to 4,500 and beyond," he
added.
(Editing by Mike Nesbit)
