London pre-open: Lower start envisaged after US retreat

8th Jun 2011 07:42

A slightly lower start looks to be on the cards after US stocks finished in the red last night following Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's speech on the economy.In stocks news, the spell of unusually hot weather over spring had drinkers queuing up at Punch Taverns, helping Britain's biggest pub operator to a sharp rise in sales in the 12 weeks to the end of May. In the managed division, which comprises the pubs that are run by the company itself, like-for-like sales were up by 7.3% from the same period the previous year, with food sales particularly strong.Revenue growth in Smiths Group's John Crane division - which supplies advanced technology industrial products for the major process industries - helped underlying sales in the first ten months push ahead of the prior year, offsetting weaker sales from Smiths Detection.Defence products group Ultra Electronics has won contracts worth £54m with engineer Rolls-Royce to supply reactor control and instrumentation systems for Royal Navy submarines.