Monday April 28, 11:29 AM
London mid-morning: Early gains consolidated
LONDON (ShareCast) - Risers outnumber fallers by more than two to one among Footsie (news) constituents, as London gets the week off to a steady start. Mining stocks are among the best performers
while banks seem little affected by rumours of another big cash call in the offing.HBOS (LSE: HBOS.L - news) edges lower on reports it is planning a £4bn rights issue that will be announced tomorrow, but other leading banks hold firm. Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: 91ID.L - news) , meanwhile, is set to follow up its £12bn cash call with a cull of 7,000 jobs according to the FT. Adding to the unease could be a survey from estate agent Savills (LSE: SVS.L - news) that predicts house prices could fall by 25% if the credit crunch persists, with the market declining by 10% this year and by a further 15 percentage points in 2009. Whitbread (LSE: WTB.L - news) , which lifted underlying profit by a better than forecast 26.3% to £210.3m in the year to February on revenues up by 11.3% to £1.19bn, is the best performer. Like-for-like sales for the continuing Whitbread businesses rose by 5.7%. "Since the start of the new financial year, two months ago, trading has been encouraging," it said adding that it plans to increase the size of Premier Inn by 50% to 55,000 rooms and to double Costa to 2,000 stores over the next five years. The soaring oil price has made Cairn Energy (LSE: CNE.L - news) the best performing blue-chip this morning and helped Tullow Oil (Dublin: TQW.IR - news) overcome the loss of its chief financial officer, Tom Hickey, who has resigned for personal reasons. Sainsbury (LSE: SBRY.L - news) , Morrison's and Tesco (LSE: TSCO.L - news) are out of favour as the Office of Fair Trading seems to have declared open season on supermarkets, following up last week's cigarettes price-fixing investigation with a probe into the pricing of health, beauty and groceries. Shire (LSE: SHP.L - news) is nursing a loss today after Credit Suisse cut its view on the stock to "underperform" from "neutral". Stagecoach said trading has been strong and above expectations since the bus and train group last updated the market in February. Earnings per share for the year ending 30 April (excluding intangible asset expenses and exceptional items) are now expected to be around 20p, thanks to the performance of the UK rail division and the group's joint venture, Virgin Rail Group. Processed foods group Uniq (LSE: UNIQ.L - news) 's sales for the first 3 months of 2008 were 0.8% up on the same period in 2007, 7.9% including currency movement.UK and Northern Europe met expectations but sales fell in France. The group also announced the closure of its Paignton site at a cost around £20m in capital and one-off costs. On-line fashion retailer ASOS (LSE: ASC.L - news) 's sales for the 12 months to 31 March 2008 are up 90% to approximately £81m. Profit before tax is expected to be significantly ahead of market expectations before a one-off charge of £1.1m and slightly ahead after the charge. Sales for the 4 weeks to 27 April 2008 up 80% year on year. Indago Petroleum (LSE: IPL.L - news) has abandoned the Al Jariya well on Oman's border with Abu Dhabi, sending the Middle-East focused oil and gas explorer's share price plunging. An agreement with Leeds City Council to extend the scope of its BSF (Building Schools for the Future) ICT contract has given educational computing specialist RM Group a lift Monday.
|
Send Article by Email
