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London Market Reports
Quiet start for blue chips
Market Movers
FTSE 100 5,992.09 +0.15%
techMARK 1,901.02 +0.31%
FTSE 250 11,607.98 +0.28%
Footsie is subdued with the company results schedule a bit threadbare and January non-farm payrolls data from the US due out this afternoon.
Utilities are one bright spot, with United Utilities, Severn Trent and International Power all higher.
Wm Morrison has been upgraded to 'buy' from 'neutral' by UBS, which suggests the the supermarket chain has at least £1bn to hand out either in a one-off distribution or through higher dividends.
"In our view, Morrison's balance sheet strength and ongoing cash generative capabilities could support both, although we think the latter is marginally more likely," UBS said.
Sales continue to surge ahead at component distributor Electrocomponents with an improvement of nearly a fifth over the past four months. Overall, sales grew by 19% in the period to January, as the International business grew by around 23% and the UK by around 11%.
The US Food and Drug Administration has accepted the AstraZeneca’s resubmission of a new drug application for its blood-thinning drug BRILINTA, and set a review date of 20 July.
Dairy Crest, the company responsible for Cathedral cheese and Country Life butter, reckons full-year profits will be in line with expectations following a “strong” third quarter. In a statement for the nine months to 31 December, it said sales were “broadly unchanged” from last year when the contribution from the offloaded stake in Wexford Creamery is taken out.
Power systems developer Rolls-Royce has signed a £20m contract to supply engines and propulsion equipment for four gas-fuelled ferries to be built for the Norwegian operator Torghatten Nord.
Budget airline easyJet flew 19.1% more passengers on its orange liveried planes this January than a year ago. More than 3.74m people took to the skies with the carrier last month, up from 3.14m in January 2010. The load factor, which measures how well planes are filled, slipped from 79.3% to 78.9%.
French Connection's ongoing businesses staged a strong profit recovery over the past six months and the fashion chain now expects to post at least £6.8m, up from £1m, for the year to January just ended.
SuperGroup, owner of the raidly growing Superdry clothes chain, has splashed out €40m in cash and shares to buy out its Benelux and France franchisee CNC Collections from its owner Luc Clément. CNC is the leading franchisee globally for the Superdry brand.
Shares in Accsys Technologies took a battering on Friday morning after the company announced a deeply discounted placing of shares. The wood products company is to raise €30m by way of an underwritten firm placing and open offer of 200m shares. The shares are being offered at €0.15 each, representing a discount of 58.9% to the closing mid-market share price on the day before the announcement.
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UK Event Calendar
INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Aveva Group, Bisichi Mining, Foresight 3 VCT, Foresight 4 VCT, Jupiter Second Split Trust Geared Shares, Mothercare, Vodafone Group
QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE
Investors Capital Trust 'A' Shares
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
PMI Construction (EU) (09:00)
PMI Construction (GER) (08:55)
Change in Non-farm Payrolls (US) (13:30)
Unemployment Rate (US) (13:30)
Average Hourly Earnings (US) (13:30)
UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
Halifax House Prices
IMSS
Electrocomponents
FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Euromoney Institutional Investor, Next Fifteen Communications, RM, Smiths News
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European Market Reports
Cautiously firmer
Most stocks are cautiously firmer ahead of this afternoon’s US jobless data, though Spain defies the general trend and opens lower.
Spain’s IBEX 35 index is down 37 at 10,823 but in Paris the CAC is up 8 at 4,044 while in Frankfurt the DAX is sporting a 14 point gain at 7,207.
Luxury goods firm LVMH disappointed with its 2010 results. Profit from continuing businesses rose 29% to €4.32bn in 2010, but that fell a shade short of expectations of €4.33bn.
Full year net income jumped 73% to €3.03bn, ahead of market expectations.
Sales rose 19% to €20.3bn, driven by increasing popularity of the Louis Vuitton brand.
Swedish lorry maker Volvo said fourth quarter net income totalled SKr.3.23bn, a sharp turnaround from a loss of SKr.2bn in the corresponding period of 2009, though lower than the SKr.2.9bn the market had been expecting. The company said profitability had been hit by currency headwinds, production bottlenecks and the costs associated with a profit sharing deal.
The company raised guidance on 2011 deliveries by 10%, saying it now expects to ship 220,000 vehicles in each of the European and North American markets.
German luxury car maker BMW is in bullish mood. The company’s chief financial officer, Friedrich Eichiner, predicted strong sales growth this year, driven by burgeoning demand in emerging markets.
Speaking in Cape Town yesterday Eichiner said the company is expecting “double digit growth in China” as well as strong demand from “countries like Brazil, Korea and … Russia”.
CAC 40 - Risers
L'Oreal (OR) € 89.64 +2.00%
Accor (AC) € 33.54 +1.65%
Michelin (ML) € 55.47 +1.44%
ArcelorMittal SA (MT) € 26.76 +1.38%
Saint Gobain (SGO) € 42.13 +1.35%
Societe Generale (GLE) € 46.99 +1.01%
Alstom (ALO) € 41.38 +0.82%
Credit Agricole (ACA) € 11.02 +0.78%
Unibail-Rodamco (UL) € 140.75 +0.75%
EDF (EDF) € 31.14 +0.74%
CAC 40 - Fallers
LVMH (MC) € 114.15 -2.35%
Pernod Ricard (RI) € 70.20 -0.85%
Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) € 2.45 -0.81%
Peugeot (UG) € 29.29 -0.71%
Suez Environnement Company (SEV) € 15.03 -0.30%
PPR (PP) € 115.80 -0.26%
Technip (TEC) € 72.68 -0.25%
Essilor International (EI) € 49.71 -0.04%
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US Market Reports
Wall Street rallies after Merck shock
Wall Street recovered from disappointing results from Merck and ongoing concerns about the situation in Egypt to close healthily higher.
Dow Jones added 20 at 12,062, the tech-loaded Nasdaq Composite gained 4 at 2,753, while the broader S&P 500 added 3 at 1,307.
Drugmaker Merck made a loss of $500m during the fourth quarter, after a $1.7bn write-down on an experimental blood thinner. A cautious outlook for 2011 knocked the share price.
Jobs data was positive. Government figures show the number of Americans filing jobless claims for the first time fell to 415,000 from an upwardly revised 457,000 the week before. Economists were looking for about 420,000.
Factory orders and services sector data both beat estimates. Orders rose 0.2% in December compared with forecasts of a 0.5% decline, while January’s ISM services index jumped to 59.4 from 57.1. Analysts had predicted a flat read.
Concern grew about the situation in Egypt where violence continues despite the army’s attempt to separate groups of rival protesters.
On the companies front, KFC-owner Yum Brands is well ahead following recent strong figures, while BJ’s Wholesale Club has rallied after admitting the company may be sold.
Retailers are in demand because of strong sales reported by Gap and Limited Brands. An increase in demand and higher prices helped Dow Chemical triple profits in its final quarter.
NewsCorp reported slightly better than expected earnings. Estee Lauder forecasts 2011 profit of $3.40 to $3.60 a share. Silicon Graphics expects to be profitable this year.
S&P 500 - Risers
Estee Lauder Co. Inc. (EL) $91.94 +14.13%
Harman International Industries Inc. (HAR) $48.79 +12.16%
AutoNation Inc. (AN) $31.44 +11.29%
Supervalu Inc. (SVU) $8.03 +10.45%
S&P 500 - Fallers
Celgene Corp. (CELG) $49.45 -7.00%
Ameriprise Financial Inc. (AMP) $58.18 -6.87%
CVS Caremark Corp. (CVS) $32.92 -4.99%
PulteGroup Inc. (PHM) $7.54 -4.80%
Dow Jones I.A - Risers
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) $21.93 +1.43%
Bank of America Corp. (BAC) $14.43 +1.33%
AT&T Inc. (T) $27.99 +1.16%
Pfizer Inc. (PFE) $19.17 +1.11%
Dow Jones I.A - Fallers
Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) $32.90 -2.72%
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) $27.65 -1.04%
Coca-Cola Co. (KO) $62.57 -0.46%
Intel Corp. (INTC) $21.47 -0.44%
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Newspaper Round-up
Euro bail-out fund, Santander, BP...
European leaders are preparing to commit themselves to an overhaul of the eurozone’s €440bn bail-out fund that would increase its lending power and give it more tools to tackle the debt crisis, according to draft summit conclusions seen by the Financial Times. The measures have been widely debated within the European Union for months.
Santander, eurozone’s biggest bank, yesterday postponed the £15bn flotation of its British operation, a deal originally pencilled in for the first quarter of this year. Emilio Botín, chairman of Grupo Santander, said that he was now aiming for the last quarter of 2011, subject to market conditions. Santander UK was to be floated in London as a way of raising about £3bn from the sale of a 20% stake. The bank gave little explanation for the delay, which comes despite a healthy 11% rise in after-tax profits of the UK business to £1.7bn, the Times reports.
Edward Bramson last night urged Alain Grisay to stay on as chief executive of F&C Asset Management as he held out an olive branch to members of the board not evicted in yesterday’s coup. Mr Bramson said he hoped that Mr Grisay would still be leading F&C in six months’ time, adding: “We have had a friendly and constructive conversation.” Mr Grisay, F&C chief executive since 2006, has led its five-month battle against Sherborne, Mr Bramson's vehicle. He was therefore widely expected to resign if Mr Bramson won, the Times reports.
BP's attempts to quantify and quickly resolve billions of dollars in compensation claims from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill have been undercut by a ruling in a Louisiana court, which questioned the independence of the $20bn claims fund established by the British oil giant last year. Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer in charge of the fund, cannot claim to be neutral, a judge said, and is in fact acting in BP's interests, the Independent reports.
Pressure is mounting on the Bank of England to raise interest rates to tackle rising inflation after data signalled that the economy has avoided a double-dip recession. Analysts said that stronger-than-expected results from the services sector pointed to an economic rebound this year in the wake of a 0.5% slide in GDP in the final three months of last year. The new data, they said, would allow the Bank of England to tackle rising inflation by increasing interest rates, which have been at a record low of 0.5% since March 2009, the Times reports.
The new director general of the CBI will today make common cause with the banks, urging the Independent Commission on Banking not to pursue a break-up or take unilateral action.John Cridland will say: "We believe breaking up the banks would be a mistake. In shaping these reforms we should remember the international nature of the financial system. The UK could put itself at a significant competitive disadvantage, with negative consequences for the broader economy, by acting in isolation," the Independent reports.
Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has dismissed the idea that the central bank’s policies are to blame for the rise in global food prices to a record high that helped trigger political unrest in Egypt. Mr Bernanke said that the rapid growth of developing economies was behind the increase in food prices, rather than the Fed’s decision to embark on a second, $600bn (£371bn) round of printing money, the Telegaph reports.
ISS, an influential shareholder advisory service, has thrown its weight behind a proposal by an Apple shareholder seeking a formal succession plan for the technology group following Steve Jobs’ latest medical leave. Institutional Shareholder Services endorsed the proposal by the Central Laborers’ Pension Fund, Jacksonville, Illinois, which is likely to have more votes when the proposal is put before investors at Apple’s annual meeting on February 23, the union pension fund said on Thursday, the FT reports.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has taken a strategic gamble that the current surge in food and commodity prices is not a repeat of the inflation virus of the 1970s and will subside without the need for a monetary squeeze. Jean-Claude Trichet, the ECB's president, set off sharp moves in currency and credit markets on Thursday as he sought to play down expectations of rate rises over coming months. Mr Trichet said the jump in eurozone inflation to 2.4% is a "short-term" effect of rising energy and commodity costs, the Telegraph reports.
Banker pay in the City is climbing after Deutsche Bank revealed that staff were paid an average of €373,000 (£318,000, $456,000) for last year, the highest compensation of any big bank. Deutsche’s investment bank, which employs 8,000 people in London, said that its total bill for wages, bonuses and other rewards, grew last year by 17 per cent to €5.9 billion. The numbers do not include the bonuses earned in respect of work done in 2010 and due to be paid out to staff later this month. These will be down on last year, the Times reports.
Senior executives at JPMorgan Chase received warnings that Bernard Madoff’s investments business could be fraudulent but took no action and continued working with him, according to a lawsuit against the bank. The suit, filed by Irving Picard, the trustee trying to recover money for investors cheated in Madoff’s $65bn (£40bn) Ponzi scheme, seeks $6.4bn from JPMorgan Chase, which served as Madoff’s banker for decades. The complaint was filed in December but unsealed yesterday, the Times reports.