UK Market News

LONDON (ShareCast) - London remains moderately firmer, helped by expectations of a similarly gentle upward shift on Wall Street when the US market opens and the strength of mining stocks.

Information conglomerate Thomson (Paris: FR0000184533 - news) -Reuters is on the upturn after it confirmed it is to delist from the London Stock Exchange (LSE: LSE.L - news) and NASDAQ (NASDAQ: news) , while retaining its listings on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges. The share price has risen on the expectation that the discount at which the London shares have traditionally traded in relation to the American shares will now disappear.

Satellite broadcaster BSkyB (LSE: BSY.L - news) is flying high after ESPN, the Walt Disney owned sport network, said it would use the BSkyB pay-TV platform to broadcast football matches. The US network has picked up the lapsed football programme rights previously held by troubled broadcaster Setanta.

Distribution and outsource specialist Bunzl (LSE: BNZL.L - news) is higher after saying it is on track this year so far despite a downturn at its UK and Irish operations. "Despite a more difficult first quarter, overall trading is in line with full year expectations," Bunzl said.

Miner Anglo American (LSE: AAL.L - news) is only moderately higher in an otherwise buoyant mining sector after it flatly rejected Swiss-based rival Xstrata (LSE: XTA.L - news) 's merger approach as "totally unacceptable," adding that the proposals lacked "strategic merit".

Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO.L - news) is the best performer in the sector, with ENRC, Xstrata and Kazakhmys (LSE: KAZ.L - news) also to the fore.

Legal & General (3166.KL - news) is the worst performing blue-chip, however, after SocGen (Paris: FR0000130809 - news) cut its rating from "hold" to "sell" and slashed its earnings forecasts for the current financial year and the next.

Pub group JD Wetherspoon gets a lift from broker comment, however, after Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS - news) said the 18% decline in the share price in the last three months offered a good buying opportunity. The US bank upgraded the stock from "underweight" to "overweight".

Aggreko (LSE: AGK.L - news) , supplier of temporary power and temperature control, has maintained its guidance for the year, expecting profits in constant currency to be at similar levels in 2009 to those achieved in 2008. Headline revenues will grow by at least 20% and pre-tax profit will be 55% higher than last year.

Printing technologies group Domino Printing saw a 19% fall in like for like sales on a constant currency basis at the interim stage, as the economic downturn took its toll.

Military decoy specialist Chemring saw half-year profits and revenues surge due to the strong performance by the Energetics division. Profit before tax rose 44% to £29.9m (2008: £20.7m) on revenue that jumped 55% to £233.5m. Interim dividend was raised to 14p from 10p in the same period last year.

Shareholders in department store Debenhams (LSE: DEB.L - news) left the bulk of the shares in the company's recent open offer on the shelves. ust 30.3% of the shares on offer were subscribed for, leaving 169m shares to be placed with institutional shareholders, who had already committed to taking 161.6m shares that were not part of the open offer.

Power station operator Drax is to raise £100m through a placing to restore its credit rating after a recent downgrade by Standard & Poor's. The group will place 25.5m new ordinary shares, approximately 7.5% of Drax's existing issued ordinary share capital, through an accelerated bookbuild today.

ROC Oil has suspended work on the Basker-5 well work-over in Australia after work on the well indicated a more complex combination of water and gas flowing within the well than expected.

Paper manufacturer James Cropper falls back despite moving into profit for the full year, reversing the losses seen in the first half. Pre-tax profit for the 12-months came in at £858,000, having recovered from a loss before tax of £261,000 in the first half, but the figure was lower than last year's profit of £1.5m.

Chemicals group Yule Catto said it expects FY underlying profit before tax to be ahead of market expectations.

LitComp (LSE: LIN.L - news) , which provides After the Event Insurance and medico-legal reports, warned that profits in the 12 months ended 31 March were slightly below expectations.