London pre-open: No sign of Wall St. hangover

25th Jun 2010 07:43

After the Dow Jones suffered a triple-digit fall overnight there were fears that London might go the same way, but traders are predicting the FTSE 100 will open a little higher, up 16 points at 5,116.BP has spent another $350,000 (£234,000) on the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster since Monday, taking the total cost to date up to $2.35bn (£1.57bn) and the number of people dealing with the response effort to some 37,000.Anglo-Swedish drugs group AstraZeneca said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reset the decision date for its review of Astra's motavizumab drug to August 27. An FDA panel had raised concerns about the respiratory disease treatment in a statement released on 2 June. Housebuilder Berkeley said the housing market in London and the South East has stabilised as it reported better than expected full-year figures. Pre-tax profit dropped 8.4% to £110.3m in the year ended 30 April, on sales of £615.3m compared with £702.2m last year. The market expected Berkeley to announce pre-tax profits in the region of £104.4m on sales of £587m.Ground preparation engineer Keller has seen no pick-up in its struggling US business. Keller warned six weeks ago of major headaches in the US and today added there have been no have been no significant changes to the group's trading or outlook since then.It's a case of 'carry on as you were' at laundry and workwear group Davis Service which said it continues to trade in line with expectations. Revenues continue to show little change from last year's levels while margins continue to improve.Sausage skin maker Devro said it has made a stronger than expected finish to the first half of the year. The group had already told the market in May that it was trading ahead of expectations, but today it said it has seen continuing progress in sales, pricing, volume growth and manufacturing efficiency since then.