London pre-open: London to carry on swooning

2nd Mar 2011 07:38

After experiencing a late dive yesterday share prices in London look set to wilt again at the outset, with City traders predicting the blue-chip index will open around 50 points easier.Profits in 2010 from Asia-focused bank Standard Chartered were bang in line with forecasts at $6.12bn, while 2011 got off to a flying start, with the group enjoying a record January, both in terms of income and profit.ITV has promised an interim dividend after cost cutting and an upturn in the advertising market allowed the terrestrial broadcaster to ramp up profits by almost 200% in 2010. Profit before tax and one-off items leapt to £321m from £108m in 2009 on revenue up 10% to £2.06bn. Net debt fell to £188m from £612m a year earlier.Revenue growth at hotel, coffee shops and pubs group Whitbread slowed sharply in the past four months, though it still made steady headway. In a seventeen week period that included the blizzards of December, like-for-like sales growth slowed to 3.9% from 6.7% over a fifty week period. Small cap promotional products producer 4imprint reported a strong rise in revenue and almost doubled underlying profit for the year as it experienced some recovery in its markets. Group revenue rose 19% to £200.77m for the year ended 1 January 2011 while underlying pre-tax profit jumped to £9.98m from £5.14m previously.