Market News - London

LONDON (ShareCast) - London continues to post losses as oils trade lower and miners mixed, although largely better banks are limiting the downside.

In the mining sector, Xstrata (LSE: XTA.L - news) is the strongest performer after Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS - news) upped its stance on the shares to 'overweight' from 'equal-weight'. Citigroup (NYSE: C - news) says 'buy'.

Kazakhmys (LSE: KAZ.L - news) , Fresnillo (LSE: FRES.L - news) and Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO.L - news) reversed initial gains, while Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) and BP are weaker. But banks are in demand, with both Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS.L - news) and Lloyds Banking (LSE: LLOY.L - news) going well.

In corporate news, dairy milk chocolate maker Cadbury (Munich: A0NJP5 - news) has left its revenue growth guidance for the full-year unchanged and said it has built on its good first quarter with improved trading in April and May. The confectioner enjoyed strong sales in its UK homeland, offsetting difficult trading in Ireland and the European mainland.

Bus and train group Go-Ahead has continued to grow like-for-like (LFL) bus and rail revenue in the last two months. The company has seen a £10m increase in fuel costs but this has been recovered through a combination of fare increases and consumption savings. Fuel requirements for the next financial year have been secured via hedging arrangements at 47p per litre, up from 43p per litre this year.

Pub group and real ale brewer Marston's dropped after announcing a fully underwritten 11 for 10 rights issue to raise gross proceeds of approximately £176m. The group also said like-for-like sales in Marston's Inns and Taverns were up 1.1 % in the 16 weeks to 6 June 2009 and pre-tax profit before exceptionals for the year to October is expected to be not less than £69m.

Engineer GKN (LSE: GKN.L - news) is also down after proposing a 6 for 5 rights issue to raise £423m and said it posted a pre-tax loss for the first five months to May. Management said sales for the five months to May totalled £1,794m.

Software (Frankfurt: A0XFVC - news) company Micro Focus (LSE: MCRO.L - news) has seen off the prospect of a rival bid for Borland by improving the terms of its offer for the legendary US software company. Micro Focus is now offering $1.15 per Borland share, up from its previous offer of $1 per share. The terms value the entire issued share capital of Borland at about $88m.

Shares in Mouchel are sharply lower after the road and infrastructure support group warned that its performance for the current year will be below previous expectations.

Industrial equipment rental firm Ashtead posted a 22% drop in full year pre-tax profit, but said its 2009/10 guidance remains unchanged.

Aim listed luxury leather bags maker Mulberry reported a decline in full year pre-tax profit and while it made a positive start to the current financial year, it remains cautious amid an uncertain economic climate.

SIG (LSE: SHI.L - news) , supplier of construction products, said due to the continuing difficult market conditions, it now expects underlying pre-tax profit for the year to be around the bottom end of the current range of market expectations.

Consultancy firm Jelf slumped into losses for the half-year and warned the challenging market conditions are unlikely to change this year.

In vitro diagnostics firm Axis (Stockholm: AXIS.ST - news) -Shield expects revenues to show growth close to 20% in the first six months of the year, with continuing strong sales across all three divisions.