London open: Blue chips edge lower

20th Jan 2010 08:37

London's blue chips have made a poor start despite triple-digit gains on Wall Street overnight.Pharmaceutical companies are the best performers after Republican Scott Brown won a shock victory in the race for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts. It puts a question mark over President Obama's planned healthcare reforms as it means the Democrats have lost their majority in the Senate. Shire, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca are all higher this morning.BHP Billiton set half-year production records for petroleum, iron ore, nickel and zinc, but expects 'some degree of volatility' in the short term outlook for its commodities.Consumer electronics retailer Kesa Electricals saw like for like sales revenue dip slightly year on year in the final two months of 2009. Total sales revenue in the period from 1 November to 8 January was up 1.3% from a year earlier, or 0.7% higher in local currency, but like for like sales in local currency were 0.3% lower, largely due to a tail off at the group's Comet stores. Charles Scott, chairman of William Hill since 2004, is to stand down as the bookmaker reported healthy trading in the final three months of 2009. Gross win margins for the full year returned to the normal 17-18% range. Group net revenue rose 6% in Q4 and is expected to be up 4% for the full-year. EBIT should be £250m, it says.Oil explorer Soco is looking to raise over £100m through a placing to help fund an 'exceptionally active' drilling programme this year. The firm will place about 7.2m shares or 9.6% of its shares in issue through a book-building sale today. Latin America-focused miner Hochschild Mining hailed a record year of production as it announced output levels for the final quarter of 2009. It reported production of 28.2m attributable silver equivalent ounces in 2009. Boss Miguel Aramburú has targeted 29m silver equivalent ounces for this year.Britain's recent cold snap hit sales at pubs group JD Wetherspoon as customers stayed in the comfort of their home. Sales at pubs open for more than a year fell by 0.3% in the 12 weeks to 17 January, with the last two weeks being affected by adverse weather conditions, the group said.The value of the portfolio of West End of London property specialist Great Portland Estates continued to recover in the final quarter of 2009, with the pace of recovery picking up from the preceding quarter. The value of the portfolio at the end of 2009 was up 8.7% from the end of September; in the July to September quarter the portfolio value had risen 4.2%.