London midday: Banks buoy Footsie

5th Jan 2010 12:18

Strength in financial stocks is helping Footsie offset declines in the retail sector.RBS adds to yesterday's stellar gains and is joined higher by fellow banks Barclays and Lloyds.Also among today's big gainers is the hedge fund manager Man Group, which has benefited from some upbeat coverage from the broker Nomura. It has a buy rating on Man, which it thinks offers a strong market position, balance sheet and yield.High street retailer Next is lower after it increased full-year profit forecasts again in response to better than expected sales in the run up to Christmas, but said it remains cautious on 2010. Profits for the year to 31 January will be between £490m and £500m, it says.Marks & Spencer, which updates the market on Christmas trading tomorrow, is also lower.In further evidence that things may be improving on the high street, John Lewis reported record sales over the Christmas and New Year period, beating its previous best of £500.7m posted in 2007.Meanwhile, Fortnum & Mason, the luxury department store on London's Piccadilly, upped like-for-like sales rise by more than 10% in the first three weeks of December.Cadbury is lower even though Kraft Foods is to bump up the cash element of its bid for the UK gum and chocolate company. Kraft has sold its North American pizza business to Swiss foods behemoth Nestle for $3.7bn, and intends to use most of the proceeds of the sale to fund a partial cash alternative to its offer for Cadbury shares, worth 60p a share.Nestle, meanwhile, has told the UK Takeover Panel it does not intend to make, or participate in, a formal offer for Cadbury.Premier Oil has agreed with Serica Energy that it will farm-in to a 50% equity interest and assume operatorship of Block 22/19c in the UK Central North Sea. Block 22/19c contains the Oates and Bowers Palaeocene prospects.Balfour Beatty said Hong Kong-based infrastructure contractor Gammon Construction, in which the support services contracting firm has a 50% shareholding, has been awarded two new contracts valued at HK $2.27bn (£180m). Dublin based cement maker CRH expects full-year pre-tax profits to drop 55% and said trading conditions remain difficult.Construction and housebuilding group Galliford Try said it has been confirmed as a construction partner of the Equitix consortium, which has been appointed as the preferred bidder on the Cambridgeshire Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.Business is blooming at garden and horticultural products firm William Sinclair after a difficult 2008.Public sector outsourcing firm May Gurney has had its long term maintenance contract with South West Water renewed and extended.Agriculture and engineering firm Carr's Milling said it continues to expect an improved result for the full year, although trading in the first quarter was substantially below that for the strong first quarter of the previous year. Educational IT specialist RM Group has firmed up some of the details of its deal to provide on screen electronic marking services for the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma qualification exams.FTSE 100 - RisersRoyal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 34.83p +8.50%Barclays (BARC) 296.80p +5.79%Man Group (EMG) 328.00p +4.99%Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 54.30p +3.90%Fresnillo (FRES) 821.00p +2.62%Old Mutual (OML) 114.10p +2.42%HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 743.30p +2.31%Anglo American (AAL) 2,831.00p +2.22%Xstrata (XTA) 1,188.00p +2.19%Aviva (AV.) 403.00p +2.15%FTSE 100 - FallersNext (NXT) 2,083.00p -2.62%Smiths Group (SMIN) 1,044.00p -2.34%GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,308.50p -2.31%Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 403.30p -2.21%Unilever (ULVR) 1,955.00p -2.05%Diageo (DGE) 1,062.00p -1.94%Autonomy Corporation (AU.) 1,500.00p -1.90%Home Retail Group (HOME) 290.10p -1.86%Cadbury (CBRY) 790.00p -1.86%Experian Group (EXPN) 608.00p -1.70%FTSE 250 - RisersRank Group (RNK) 86.15p +7.35%Ferrexpo (FXPO) 224.40p +6.05%Premier Oil (PMO) 1,212.00p +4.57%Petropavlovsk (POG) 1,154.00p +3.87%Drax Group (DRX) 435.40p +3.67%CSR (CSR) 441.40p +3.66%Carpetright (CPR) 983.00p +3.31%Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 310.40p +3.26%Northern Foods (NFDS) 72.25p +3.21%Computacenter (CCC) 270.00p +3.05%FTSE 250 - FallersDaejan Holdings (DJAN) 2,906.00p -3.00%SVG Capital (SVI) 135.60p -2.87%Melrose Resources (MRS) 285.50p -2.79%Filtrona PLC (FLTR) 188.80p -2.68%DSG International (DSGI) 36.93p -2.53%WH Smith (SMWH) 509.00p -2.30%Inchcape (INCH) 29.33p -2.30%Fidelity Special Values (FSV) 551.00p -2.22%Electra Private Equity (ELTA) 1,192.00p -2.21%HMV Group (HMV) 94.30p -2.18%