London open: Flat start for blue chips

7th Jul 2009 08:49

London's blue chips have opened flat despite Wall St's strong rally just before it closed.Miners have recovered some of the losses run up yesterday, helped by the late pick-up on Wall Street. Kazakhmys, Vedanta and Lonmin have rallied the most so far this morning.Housebuilder Persimmon has seen both volume and revenues improve recently and expects that trend to continue against the weak conditions experienced throughout the second half of 2008.Irish building materials giant CRH has forecast it will only scrape a profit in the first half of 2009, with the second half expected to be worse as it bears the brunt of the collapse of global construction markets. Profit before tax is expected to be of the order of €0.1bn. This compares with a first-half 2008 profit before tax of €0.6bn.Recruitment firm Michael Page's gross profit in the second quarter fall 45% and it warned of a challenging third quarter. Operating profit from trading activities was similar to the first quarter at around £3m. The group also said headcount has been decreased by 429 (10.4%) in the quarter to 3,705 at June 2009, which is 33.1% lower than the peak at 30 June 2008. Self-storage group Big Yellow reported a 6% drop in quarterly store revenues but said trading conditions have continued to show an improvement. Total store revenue for the first quarter ended 30 June was £13.5m compared with £14.3m for the same quarter last year, but revenue rose 1% from the quarter to 31 March 2009. JJB Sports has rallied around executive chairman Sir David Jones after allegations of a conflict of interest as it confirmed he has a £1.5m loan outstanding with Mike Ashley, the owner of JJB's main rival Sports Direct. JJB today said the £1.5m business loan was used for investment in Advanced Network Technologies, a private technology company in which Sir David and his family are majority investors.Home shopping company N Brown Group saw turnover increase by 5.1% in the 18 weeks ended 4 July, with contributions from all major customer and product groups.Currency translation benefits and strong demand in the Middle East have kept support services group Cape on track in the first half, despite some order delays in Australia.