London open: Quiet start in London

21st Oct 2009 08:54

London's top stocks are moving sideways pretty much despite a late burst on Wall Street and better than expected results after hours from US web giant Yahoo!UK company news is less dramatic. Home Retail reported a 3% rise in half year sales and said trading at both Argos and Homebase exceeded its expectations. Sales rose to £2,805m in the 26 weeks to 29 August from £2,736m, reflecting growth of 1.7% at Argos and 4.4% at Homebase. Like-for-like sales were down 2.1% at Argos and up 2.8% at Homebase.Power station operator Drax is trading in line with expectations for the current year but said conditions remain challenging. 'Since publishing our half year results on 4 August, trading conditions in the commodity markets in which we operate remain challenging,' said the group. Cadbury has thrown down the gauntlet to potential bidder Kraft by upping its guidance for 2009 revenue growth to the middle of its 4-6% goal range and stating its underlying operating margin improvement will be at least 135bps in constant currency. Miner BHP Billiton reported record iron ore production over the past three months amid signs of stabilising demand from both emerging and developed countries. 'Over the last three months there has been increasingly positive economic news across most economies. Chinese economic growth continues to be robust on the back of strong domestic focused consumption and infrastructure-based stimulus spending,' it said. J Sainsbury remains a strong performer on hopes that the sale of a stake in Barclays yesterday by the Qatar soverign wealth could lead to a bid. Tesco is also higher. Smiths and BSkyB lead the ex-dividend list.Demand for property ahead of the Olympics helped East London focused housebuilder Telford Homes nearly double completions in the past six months, but a lack of mortgage finance remains a constraint.Online gaming technology developer Playtech said activity improved towards the end of the third quarter and momentum has continued into the start of the fourth quarter.