London open: Good start for blue chips

1st Feb 2011 08:42

Overnight gains on Wall Street and a positive session in the Far East sent London's blue chip index past 5,900 in early trading.Concern over the situation in Egypt eased a little yesterday, though tensions still remain very high and the oil price spiked higher.Miner, Centamin Egypt said "Recent political events in Egypt have not affected the safety of the company's employees or its day to day operations at its flagship project, Sukari. The company looks forward however to a speedy resolution to the current uncertainty and remains confident that such resolution will not negatively impact on the company's investment." Other miners are going well with Kazakhmys and Antofagasta the top risers.In expected company news, BP has resumed dividend payments, as expected, with a fourth quarter pay-out of 7c. But it also sprang a small surprise with the announcement of a decision to sell half of its US refining capacity including the troubled Texas City refinery.For the full year, the company reported a loss of $4.91bn, including a total pre-tax charge related to the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) oil spill of $40.9bn. In 2009, it had made a replacement cost profit of $13.96bn.Booming demand for mobile phones, tablet computers and other low- powered devices meant 2010 saw the highest ever annual revenues, profits and cash generation for chip designer ARM Holdings. Underlying fourth quarter profits jumped 47% to £47.6m from £32.3m, helping to lift the full year total by 73% to £167.4m. Mining giant Xstrata produced more coking coal, semi-soft coking coal, mined nickel and refined nickel in 2010 than ever before, while copper, lead and ferrochrome were all up on the year before.The Anglo-Swiss firm ramped up output of Australian coking coal to 7.7m tonnes from 6.4m in 2009.Profits fell at Autonomy in the last quarter despite a sharp pick up in sales, but the search software giant added that market forecasts for the current year look 'conservative' given its current sales pipeline. Specialist carpet and floor coverings retailer Carpetright warned it now expects profits for the year to 30 April 2011 to be below the current range of market expectations as difficult trading conditions continue. Group sales declined by 6.4%, with the year on year effect of closing its operations in Poland accounting for 0.4% of this decline. Online grocer Ocado made a profit in the fourth quarter as a record number of customers pushed sales to an all-time high. The company, which delivers groceries from the Waitrose supermarket, posted an EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) profit before exceptional items of £0.9m for the second half of the year ended 28 November, and an EBT(earnings before tax) profit of £0.3m in the fourth quarter. Tate and Lyle, the food ingredients firm, remains on track to meet its full-year targets after an encouraging third quarter performance. Reporting on the October to December quarter, the group saw continued growth in sales volumes worldwide within its Speciality Foods ingredients division.