London open: Blue chips lower ahead of jobs data

7th Jan 2011 08:51

London has fallen back below 6,000 as investors sit on their hands ahead of the non-farm payrolls data coming out of the US this afternoon. Estimates are for about 150,000 new jobs to have been added in December. Elsewhere, it's a quiet morning so far. There has been a further development in the simmering dispute between shopping centres operator Capital Shopping Centres (CSC) and 5% US shareholder Simon Property. The latter has been critical of CSC's proposed purchase of Manchester's Trafford Centres from Peel Holdings and has been mulling a near-£3bn offer for the UK company.CSC has sought to head off Simon by revising the terms of the Trafford Centre acquisition. Peel has agreed to value the CSC shares being issued to pay for the transaction at 400p, up from the 368p per share originally agreed, which means CSC will only have to issue 205.9m shares to Peel, down from 224.1m.Arm Holdings has given back some of the gains inspired by its chip design deal with Microsoft yesterday.Miners are also on the back foot with copper specialists Antofagasta and Kazakhmys leading the retreat alongside African Barrick Gold.Budget airline easyJet sold 7.6% more seats in December than the same time last year and filled its planes slightly better as well. The no-frills carrier flew 3.66m passengers compared with 3.34m in December 2009. That takes the rolling 12-month figure to 49.72, up 7.9% on last year. It made no mention of the snow-related problems that rival British Airways said yesterday had cost it £50m. The Christmas snow was no problem for sport-themed fashion chain JD Sports Fashion, which did so well it now thinks full-year profits will beat expectations. Like for like sales for the five weeks ended 1 January grew 2.5% and cumulative like for like sales for the 48 weeks are up 3.1%. They were up 2.8% in the 30 weeks to 28 August.Wellstream, the manufacturer of flexible risers and flowlines for the oil and gas industry, expects 2010 earnings to be ahead of expectations. The group, which recently agreed to be taken over by General Electric, said a strong second half performance in Brazil was primarily responsible for the better than expected outturn.Strong growth in the Far East, and China in particular, helped white collar recruiter Robert Walters lift fourth quarter gross profits by 42%, making an increase of 49% for past year overall. Ukraine-focused oil and gas group JKX is facing a potentially big tax hike after the government there introduced a new tax code this year. The overall impact is anticipated to be an immediate increase in subsidiary Poltava Petroleum's effective tax rate from approximately 30% to approximately 50%, JKX says.Paving slabs group Marshalls grew revenue by 4% in 2010, but the atrocious weather during December lost the company about £5m of sales and knocked £0.8m off operating profits. Market MoverstechMARK 1,863.96 -0.54%FTSE 100 5,979.14 -0.67%FTSE 250 11,688.87 -0.24%FTSE 100 - RisersMan Group (EMG) 306.20p +1.29%SABMiller (SAB) 2,267.00p +0.96%FTSE 100 - FallersARM Holdings (ARM) 460.60p -4.44%Smith & Nephew (SN.) 640.50p -3.32%Kazakhmys (KAZ) 1,583.00p -2.22%Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,504.00p -2.15%African Barrick Gold (ABG) 570.50p -1.89%Compass Group (CPG) 563.00p -1.83%Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 1,982.00p -1.83%Anglo American (AAL) 3,253.00p -1.71%Fresnillo (FRES) 1,555.00p -1.46%Aviva (AV.) 410.30p -1.39%FTSE 250 - RisersTalvivaara Mining Company (TALV) 605.00p +2.54%JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 886.00p +2.37%Berendsen (BRSN) 448.30p +1.89%Pace (PIC) 188.50p +1.73%Pennon Group (PNN) 646.50p +1.65%Sportingbet (SBT) 60.90p +1.50%Sports Direct International (SPD) 167.10p +1.33%Punch Taverns (PUB) 77.45p +1.18%John Wood Group (WG.) 569.50p +1.15%QinetiQ Group (QQ.) 133.30p +0.98%FTSE 250 - FallersJKX Oil & Gas (JKX) 293.00p -8.52%International Personal Finance (IPF) 357.10p -4.52%Centamin Egypt Ltd. (CEY) 167.50p -2.62%Filtrona PLC (FLTR) 245.00p -2.00%Barratt Developments (BDEV) 94.50p -1.97%Redrow (RDW) 135.00p -1.75%CPP Group (CPP) 310.00p -1.59%Grainger (GRI) 102.50p -1.44%SIG (SHI) 131.00p -1.36%Rank Group (RNK) 131.40p -1.35%FTSE TechMARK - RisersTorotrak (TRK) 23.50p +8.05%NCC Group (NCC) 570.00p +5.95%Renovo Group (RNVO) 69.75p +2.20%XP Power Ltd. (DI) (XPP) 1,100.00p +2.14%Vislink (VLK) 24.50p +2.08%Vectura Group (VEC) 71.00p +0.71%Oxford Biomedica (OXB) 5.45p +0.55%Oxford Instruments (OXIG) 708.00p +0.43%Phoenix IT Group (PNX) 278.00p +0.27%Corin Group (CRG) 52.50p 0.00%FTSE TechMARK - FallersKCOM Group (KCOM) 57.00p -4.60%Gresham Computing (GHT) 29.50p -0.84%Xaar (XAR) 239.00p -0.42%Anite (AIE) 64.50p -0.39%Promethean World (PRW) 66.25p -0.38%Corin Group (CRG) 52.50p 0.00%Asterand (ATD) 17.00p 0.00%Kofax (KFX) 290.00p 0.00%Innovation Group (TIG) 15.00p 0.00%Triad Group (TRD) 19.50p 0.00%