London pre-open: Strong rise expected

22nd May 2012 07:32

The Footsie is expected to make its second day of gains on Tuesday, following a poor performance last week. City sources are predicting the blue chip index to rise around 50 points from yesterday's close of 5,304.It was revealed last night by The Financial Times that the European Central Bank (ECB) has provided €100bn to Greece's central bank in 'emergency liquidity assistance' (ELA) to help its banks.In corporate news in London, High Street giant Marks and Spencer saw profits drop by 15.7 per cent in the year ended March 31st due to higher impairments of assets and strategic programme costs.Statutory pre-tax profit fell from £780.6m to £658m as non-underlying items had a £47.9m adverse impact, compared with a £66.3m gain the year before. Nevertheless, the market consensus was for £693m. On an underlying basis, pre-tax profit fell by just 1.2% from £714.3m to £705.9m.Mobile phone networks giant Vodafone is expecting underlying growth in adjusted operating profit and stability in free cash flow in the current financial year.In the year just gone (ending March 31st), group revenue rose 1.2% from a year earlier to £46.4bn, slightly ahead of forecasts of £46.3bn. Organic service revenue growth over the full year was 1.5%, with the fourth quarter seeing an acceleration in growth to 2.3%.Polymers maker Victrex enjoyed record sales in the second quarter of its financial year as customers stopped running down their stock levels.Over the six month period, however, group revenue was still down 2% to £105.6m from £107.9m a year earlier. Profit before tax in the six months to March 31st eased to £46.2m from £48.3m the year before.BC