London pre-open: Losses likely

13th Jan 2010 07:34

Last night's decline on Wall Street, its first of 2010, is set to tip London lower in early deals.US stocks were hurt by weaker than expected fourth quarter results from aluminium producer Alcoa after hours Monday, while Chinese moves to cool bank lending and a profit warning from Chevron also hurt sentiment.Over here, futures prices indicate the FTSE 100 will drop about 10 points at the start of play.Kraft Foods has increased its earnings guidance for 2009 as it attempts to generate momentum for its hostile bid for Cadbury after the latest rebuttal from the UK chocolate group yesterday. The US processed food giant says diluted earnings per share for the year just ended will be at least $2 versus previous expectations of at least $1.97. Cadbury repeated on Monday its view that the American's £10.5bn offer is 'derisory' and completely undervalues the UK business. Among the mid-caps, emerging markets asset manager Ashmore Group increased assets under management by 2% in the second quarter, but that's less than many analysts were hoping for given improved conditions. AuM for the quarter to 31 December rose to $31.6bn from $31.1bn in September, but analysts at UBS yesterday predicted AuM would rise 3% to $32bn, which was less than its previous forecast of $32.5bn due to expected further redemptions by US pension funds.Greggs expects full year results to be in line with expectations and said more customers popped into the bakery chain for hot pies over Christmas. Over the four week Christmas trading period to 26 December total sales grew by 3.1% and like-for-like sales grew by 1.1%. The group said it sold more than a million mince pies each week, up 6% on last year.More good growth from its online operation helped mail order clothing group N Brown's sales rise handily over the Christmas period. Total revenue increased by 4.9% for the 19 weeks ended 9 January 2010 with like-for-like sales, excluding revenue from Simply Be in Germany and High & Mighty, up 3.6%. Online sales have increased by 13% and now account for 39% of the total sales.SIG said it has seen exceptionally challenging conditions and disruption to trading caused by extreme weather conditions in a number of countries in the final weeks of the year, but does not expect full year underlying pre-tax profits to be less than current analysts' consensus expectations of £60m.The building products group said total sales for the year were c.£2,744m, a drop of about £310m (10.1%) from 2008 (£3,054m). Like for like sales fell c.11.5% in sterling and by c.15.6% in constant currency.