London pre-open: Small gains ahead

30th Jun 2010 07:36

London's top stocks are expected to open only slightly higher following yesterday's heavy losses.Traders were nervy in Europe about bank payments that need to be made to the European Central Bank this week, while triple-digit falls on Wall Street added to London's woes on Tuesday. Today, traders expect Footsie to open around 10 points higher.Anglo-Swedish drugs giant AstraZeneca was understandably happy with a court ruling that upheld its CRESTOR patent. Judge Joseph Farnan of the US District Court of Delaware found that the substance patent protecting CRESTOR (RE37,314 - the '314 patent) is valid and enforceable. Asia-focused bank Standard Chartered is to be the cornerstone investor in the Agricultural Bank of China. The bank is buying $500m of the H shares being floated by Agricultural Bank of China, one of the top four commercial banks in China. The funds will come from Standard Chartered's internal resources. Oil services specialist Hunting said trading in the first half has been 'very positive' despite the BP oil spill and sluggish natural gas prices, though the group admitted that there will be some impact from the Gulf of Mexico disaster in the second half. Well Completion has traded strongly although some exposure to deep water Gulf of Mexico (GOM) will have an impact during the rest of the year, the group said. Rio Tinto said it is exercising all of its Series A warrants which will increase the mining giant's ownership of Ivanhoe Mines shares by 7.3% to 29.6% and provide sufficient funds to Ivanhoe to continue the development of the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold complex as scheduled. The Series A warrants entitle Rio Tinto to acquire more than 46m shares at a subscription price of $8.54 each, for total consideration of approximately $393m. SDL, the information management solutions provider, has bought Dutch browser-based software developer Xopus. The initial consideration is €1.6m, with the company being bought on a debt free basis. The cost of the acquisition could rise to €2m, depending on the performance of Xopus in the year to 30 June 2011.Big hits such as 'Avatar', 'Iron Man 2' and 'Sex and the City 2', helped cinema chain Cineworld overcome the competing attractions of the World Cup and lift revenue by 3.7% in the half year to June.Elsewhere, the Guardian reports that chancellor George Osborne's emergency budget could result in the loss of up to 1.3m jobs across the economy over the next five years, according to unpublished Treasury estimates.