London open: Quiet start despite Wall St rally

3rd Feb 2010 08:50

Hopes of a strong start have been dashed with Footsie limping along at present even though Wall Street posted its second triple-digit gain in two gains overnight.Data search software Autonomy reported fourth quarter and full year figures that were in line with expectations and gave a confident outlook for 2010. Revenues for the fourth quarter rose 53% to $223.1m, while adjusted net profits were $80.5m compared with $53.5m last year.Power supplier Scottish & Southern Energy is on course for a 'moderate increase' in underlying profits this year, while the dividend for the year will be at least 70p, a 6% hike. Over the nine months to December the number of electricity and gas supply customer accounts in the Great Britain market increased by 200,000 to 9.2m. Life assurance firm Standard Life announced a 'significant increase' in flows and sales in the fourth quarter. Life and pensions net inflows more than tripled to £1.3bn from £0.4bn a year earlier. Life and pensions sales of £4.2bn were a sizeable improvement on both the prior year (£3.2bn) and the third quarter (£3.0bn).Hot on the heels of Tuesday's engine order from Sichuan Airlines, Rolls-Royce has announced another engine order, this time from Turkish Airlines. The contract is worth up to $170m to Rolls-Royce.Ex-dividends are proving a drag with AstraZeneca and Carpetright both knocked back. The carpet retailer also reported sales overall rose by 7% recently despite problems with cold weather. UK and Ireland were the star turns with the sales in the 13 weeks to January up 7.7%, with like-for-like sales up 2.3%. A net four stores opened, increasing the total to 5,942.Mining giant Eurasian Natural Resources (ENRC) said production volumes in the three month ended 31 December further improved on the levels of the previous quarter, in line with expectations. Ferrochrome production increased 56.7% compared to last year and 5.7% from the previous quarter. Output increased to 351,000 tonnes during the period from 224,000 tonnes last year. Iron ore extraction was up 74.1% year-on-year, while saleable ore jumped 79.5%.Educational and financial information publisher Pearson has snapped up Medley Global Advisors, a company that provides macro intelligence to the world's leading investment banks, hedge funds and asset managers. PartyGaming, which owns the PartyPoker.com online gambling site, said fourth quarter sales surged 32% from the year before and it remains confident about the full year outlook.