London open: Banks and miners lead fall

17th Dec 2009 08:49

Weak miners and banking shares are leading London's top stocks lower in early dealings on Thursday.UK shares were expected to start the session in the red after Wall Street fell following the latest Federal Reserve rate decision and stimulus update.The central bank said interest rates would stay low for some time, although it upgraded its estimate for the US economy and will continue to rein back some its stimulus measures.On this side of the pond, Lloyds Banking is leading the blue chip fallers, while Standard Chartered and Barclays are also among the worst performers.Miners are also on offer early on, including Antofagasta, Eurasian Natural Resources and Xstrata.Thousands of passengers are stranded overseas after Globespan, which operates Scotland's largest airline, was placed in administration. All Flyglobespan planes were grounded without warning after the Edinburgh-based company failed to secure a multi-million-pound rescue package last night. With just two weeks to go before the year end, oil and gas facilities service provider Wood Group believes 2009 earnings will be in line with expectations. It thanked a "robust" performance from its production support related businesses, with development related engineering activities, subsea and pipelines doing well. But it did warn that project delays in upstream and downstream have reduced volumes and margins. They should recover in the second half of the year. Rail and bus group Arriva is trading in line with expectations and says there is evidence of a recovery in passenger revenue growth in its UK trains division. Passenger revenue for CrossCountry rose 2.1% in the first 48 weeks of 2009, but was up 6.1% in the 13 weeks ended 12 December. But that "still falls well short of the level required to compensate for declining franchise support payments," the firm said. Bosses have "confidence in a positive medium-term outlook".Estate agent Savills expects its underlying performance for 2009 to be "significantly" ahead of previous forecasts, but it remains cautious about the sustainability of the current performance of UK residential and Asia Pacific transaction markets in 2010. In recent weeks, the group has seen continued strength in the Asia Pacific region, more transactions in the UK Commercial market, and a higher than expected level of transactions in the UK prime residential market.Construction and regeneration group Morgan Sindall is still on track to meet expectations for the current year. Its forward order book has eased to £3.2bn from £3.6bn at the end of June, although it is supplemented by over £900m of projects at preferred bidder stage, all of which have been awarded during the second half of this year.Car dealer Inchcape expects 2009's performance to be slightly ahead of forecasts. Total revenue for the first 11 months of 2009 was down 11.4% on a year ago in constant currency terms, while like for like revenue fell 15.6%. But the company has seen strong demand for new cars in the UK in the second half, and there are also signs of revival in the Hong Kong and Australian markets.Personal care products group McBride expects operating profit in the first half to exceed forecasts. First half revenues are expected to be ahead of last year, driven by continuing growth in the France and Italy household markets, and in personal care, as well as a favourable currency translation impact. FTSE 100 - RisersRentokil Initial (RTO) 109.20p +4.00%Cable & Wireless (CW.) 141.90p +1.14%Experian Group (EXPN) 630.00p +1.12%Capita Group (CPI) 733.00p +0.96%Rexam (REX) 285.30p +0.92%British Land Co (BLND) 454.60p +0.91%G4S (GFS) 260.10p +0.89%Fresnillo (FRES) 825.00p +0.86%SEGRO (SGRO) 341.10p +0.74%Next (NXT) 2,039.00p +0.64%FTSE 100 - FallersLloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 54.36p -2.20%Antofagasta (ANTO) 927.50p -1.70%Standard Chartered (STAN) 1,556.50p -1.33%Barclays (BARC) 288.20p -1.30%Shire Plc (SHP) 1,178.00p -1.26%Compass Group (CPG) 459.20p -1.25%Eurasian Natural Resources (ENRC) 898.50p -1.05%International Power (IPR) 297.70p -1.03%Xstrata (XTA) 1,076.00p -1.01%Resolution (RSL) 81.70p -0.97%