London pre-open: Early rise likely

15th Sep 2009 07:34

Last night's spirited fightback on Wall Street following President Obama's speech on financial reform looks like getting London off to a good start this morning.Traders reacted warmly to the President's speech in which he said there could be no return to the days of reckless risk-taking. He also set out a four-point plan aimed a preventing a repeat of the financial crisis.Futures prices are currently indicating an 11 point rise for the FTSE 100 in early deals after the Dow Jones turned losses into gains in late trade.Over here, BG has announced another oil discovery offshore Brazil just days after it revealed a monster find in the Santos Basin. The latest, Abare West, is also in the Santos Basin - in the pre-salt BM-S-9 concession area - approximately 290km off the coast of Sao Paulo State. BG owns 30% of the prospect alongside Petrobas (45% and operator) and Repsol 25%. Department store chain Debenhams reported a 3.8% drop in second half like-for-like sales, but expects pre-tax profits for the full-year to be ahead of last year and in line with expectations.Specialist homewares retailer Dunelm's full-year profit was bang in line with forecasts. Pre-tax profit for the 53 weeks to 4 July jumped 9% to £53.5m and by 6.8% on a 52-week basis. Like for like sales were down just 0.5% versus the 5.6% decline in H1. LfL sales for the first 10 weeks of the financial year jumped 16.1%.Reports in today's FT suggest RSA, the general insurance group, is looking at large acquisitions - potentially worth about £600m ($994m) - that might need to be supported with a rights issue, it has told investors and analysts. The company, which has a strong capital cushion and a stated strategy of pursuing smaller, bolt-on deals, said there were "recently emerged opportunities that could be larger than 'bolt-on' acquisitions", according to analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.On the economic front, the monthly survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said that more agents had reported a rise, rather than a fall in values, in August. The net balance was +11% last month versus minus 6% in July. That's the highest proportion since May 2007.