London pre-open: Gains ahead

21st Apr 2010 07:31

London's blue chips are expected to add to yesterdays gains in early dealings on Wednesday, with traders looking for a 15 point advanced.Lisa Morgan has stepped down as the chief executive of Game Group after the video game retailer revealed a sharp fall in profits in the year to January 31. Pre-tax profits totalled £84.2m, which was below expectations and sharply down from £117.4m the previous year, on turnover that slid to £1.77bn from £1.97bn. Non-executive director Chris Bell is to act as interim chief executive while the company looks for a new boss. UK chief operating officer Terry Scicluna has also announced his intention to step down.Miner BHP Billiton saw a sharp fall in copper production in the three months to March as industrial action in Chile and mechanical problems at its Olympic Dam mine in Australia took their toll. Copper output fell 19% compared to this time last year, though BHP saw year to date (nine months) production records for iron ore, nickel, alumina and zinc, and, by location, at North West Shelf, Hunter Valley Energy Coal, Nickel West and Worsley (all Australia), Mad Dog (US), Alumar refinery (Brazil) and Zamzama (Pakistan).Enterprise software giant Autonomy reported record revenues and profits in the first quarter as clients loosen their purse strings after scaling back in the downturn. The firm, which uses technology borne out of research at Cambridge University, saw revenues in the three months to March 31 climb by 50% from the same period the previous year to $194.2m. Adjusted pre-tax profits climbed by 47% to $85.3m.Aerospace and defence systems group Meggitt said trading since the start of the year has been in line with its expectations of a challenging first half followed by a return to growth in the second half of the year. The group said it remains well placed to take advantage of an upturn in the civil aerospace markets which is anticipated to start benefitting the group in the second half of the year. Distribution and outsourcing group Bunzl said trading in the period since 31 December has been in line with expectations. Underlying revenue in the first quarter was up 2% on last year led by North America which was 5% higher. However, reported revenue was down 2% due to the negative impact of currency translation with sterling stronger in the first quarter of 2010 than in the corresponding period last year. On the economic front, the release of the minutes of the April meeting of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee is likely to be a non-event. Even if the committee had been minded to change policy it would have been unlikely to do so with a general election in the offing. Unemployment figures are likely to be of greater interest, particularly to those politicians on the hustings. The claimant count unemployment rate for March is tipped to hold steady at 4.9% . The jobless claims change is forecast to show a decline of 6,300 compared to February's surprisingly large fall of 32,300. The number of jobless on the International Labour Organization (ILO) measure is predicted to have fallen by 19,000 in the three months to February to 2.440 million, leaving the ILO unemployment rate steady at 7.8%.