London pre-open: Stocks to open slightly higher

2nd Feb 2012 07:45

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open slightly higher, up 14 points from yesterday's close of 5,791, following strong gains in late trading on Wednesday. Fourth quarter sales at medical devices maker Smith and Nephew came in a touch shy of market expectations, but showed a modest improvement on the previous year's fourth quarter figure. Revenue rose to $1,106m in the final three months of 2011 from $1,067m the year before; the market had been expecting $1,115m. Trading profit edged up to $279m from $278m a year earlier, while the trading profit margin at 25.2% was ahead of the company's expectations of a figure of 24%.Anglo-Dutch integrated oil company Royal Dutch Shell is set to nudge up its dividend after finishing 2011 with a solid increase in underlying earnings. Fourth quarter earnings on a current cost of supplies (CCS) basis rose to $6.5bn from $5.7bn the year before. Full year 2011 CCS earnings surged to $28.6bn from $18.6bn the year before. The quarterly dividend, which has been stuck at 42 cents for some time, is set to be upped to 43 cents in the first quarter of the new fiscal year. Food and support services firm Compass says that is has had a good first quarter and its expectations for the full-year remain unchanged, despite experiencing a continuing challenging macroeconomic environment in Europe. Nevertheless, the group said that like-for-like volumes in North American and the Fast Growing & Emerging Markets continue to be robust.