Standard Life boosted by house broker On what was another subdued day for the London stock market, a nudge from one of Standard Life's house brokers was enough to send the insurer to the top of the FTSE 100 leaderboard. Shares in the group rose 8.7, or 2.5pc, to 354.1p today after JPMorgan Cazenove analyst Ashik Musaddi repeated his "overweight" recommendation - the equivalent of a "buy" - and lifted his price target to 430p from 419p. In an upbeat research note on the insurer, Mr Musaddi said he had brought forward his special dividend forecast by a year, and now expects a £300m payout from Standard Life at the group's full-year results next year. The company unveiled a £302m special payout at its last set of earnings in March. The broader market appeared to be paralysed by the continuing partial shutdown of the US government. Nervousness over the situation meant trading volumes were thin and, denied the excitement of a non-farm payrolls release due to the government closure, the FTSE 100 finished up just 4.84 points at 6,453.88. Although there was no official jobs data, dealers did pick up on an online report claiming that 142,000 jobs were added last month, which was taken with a heavy pinch of salt. In the FTSE 250 - 13.82 lower at 14,839.22, takeover talk failed to lift power group Drax, down 3 at 675½p. Analysts at Citigroup repeated their "buy" recommendation on the shares, arguing that "cash flow generation 2015 onwards should also allow for increasing shareholder returns and will likely make Drax a more attractive take-out target." A profit warning and unexpected departure of Carpetright's chief executive saw the retailer slump 57 to 616½p. But both Argos-owner Home Retail, 3.3 higher at 171p, and Dixons Retail, up 0.74 at 46.39p, benefited from upgrades to "buy" at UBS. Of the latter, analysts at the broker argued that "Dixons has proven its many critics wrong and has justified both the role and the potential profitability for multi-channel electricals retailers." Outside the FTSE 250, gold miner Petropavlovsk advanced 2 to 76½p on news that IRC, the iron ore company it part owns, was undertaking the second stage of its refinancing. Lower down the scale, small-cap clean fuel technology group ITM Power climbed 1¾ to 41.625p on the announcement it had won a £1m grant from the Welsh assembly to set up a subsidiary in the country. Two contract wins by Capital Drilling spurred the mining services group 1.375p higher to 21¼p.