London midday: Banks lead risers, Essar still volatile
19th Jan 2012 11:54
- Spain sells more than target in debt auction - Greek talks ongoing - Consumer confidence falls The Footsie extended gains by midday, with the banks performing well, with euro optimism giving a boost to sentiment. The Spanish Treasury has this morning sold €6.61bn in long-term debt, well above th
Read moreLondon open: Footsie flat despite euro optimism
19th Jan 2012 08:22
The FTSE 100 opened flat on Thursday morning, following gains made yesterday after the news that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is boosting its lending capacity by at least $500bn. Lifting sentiment was a source from the Greek finance ministry, who told French news agency Agence France-Pre
Read moreWednesday broker round-up
18th Jan 2012 09:32
BT Group: UBS downgrades from buy to neutral, target cut from 230p to 210p. Tullow Oil: finnCap retains sell rating and 1,000p target. Man Group: Peel Hunt keeps buy stance but puts 245p target under review. Vodafone: On UBS's most preferred telecoms list. Rio Tinto: UBS cuts target from 5,500p
Read moreLondon midday: Stocks drift higher after Chinese, German data
17th Jan 2012 11:43
Stocks were off their intraday highs by lunchtime but the Footsie was still some 26 points up from yesterday's close, helped by some cheery Chinese GDP data and a better-than-expected German confidence survey. Fourth quarter gross domestic product (GDP) data from China was easing fears of a hard la
Read moreLondon close: Stocks erase gains, Tesco falls 16%
12th Jan 2012 16:24
Gains were pared in afternoon trade on Thursday following a poor start on Wall Street, meaning that the FTSE 100 finished in the red for the second day in a row. It was a busy day on the corporate news front, with Tesco and RBS grabbing the headlines, while central banks did what was expected and ke
Read moreFTSE 100 Movers: Tesco on the bottom shelf
12th Jan 2012 14:24
Tesco's Christmas trading statement plunged the UK's leading supermarket chain into the bottom spot after reporting that its sales performance in the home market fell below expectations, prompting the company to advise full-year trading profit growth will be around the low end of the range of analys
Read moreThursday broker round-up - UPDATE
12th Jan 2012 09:08
Reckitt Benckiser: J.P. Morgan Cazenove downgrades to neutral from overweight. Tesco: Nomura reiterates buy rating and 500p target; Panmure Gordon cuts target from 500p to 440p, buy rating unchanged. Royal Bank of Scotland: Shore Capital reiterates sell. Tesco: Shore Capital downgrades to hold fr
Read moreLondon open: Footsie up early on, pharmas fall
9th Jan 2012 08:18
London's FTSE 100 opened slightly higher on Monday morning helped by banking titans Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC. Oil stocks Essar Energy, Tullow Oil and Royal Dutch Shell were tracking oil prices higher. Today's big event will be the meeting of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French Preside
Read moreHSBC to offload Korean arm, FT reports
6th Jan 2012 07:58
The Financial Times (FT) believes Britain's biggest bank, HSBC, could be about to sell its Korean retail operation to local player KDB Financial. The paper quotes Kang Man-soo, KDB's Chairman as saying talks between the two banks are "progressing well". HSBC is known to want to get out of unprofit
Read moreHSBC sells Maltese card acquiring unit
28th Dec 2011 15:10
Global banking titan HSBC is to offload its Maltese card acquiring business for €11.075m. HSBC Bank Malta will sell the said unit to HSBC Merchant Services, a subsidiary of Global Payments Inc, as part of group's strategic decisions set out earlier this year. HSBC Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver o
Read moreLondon close: Footsie flounders at the finish
21st Dec 2011 16:40
It was a day of two halves for the Footsie, with the morning's gains reversed in the afternoon session in the wake of the result of the European Central Bank's new three-year credit facility. The European Central Bank allotted €489.2bn in its auction of three-year loans, whereas the market had been
Read moreLondon midday: Footsie laid low by Unicredit, rumours of French downgrade?
21st Dec 2011 11:39
The banks were providing a lift at midday, but the Footsie was registering only slight gains with only a few days before Christmas. Hopes of a 'Santa rally' seem to have been dampened towards midday by the suspension from trading of shares of Unicredit 'limit-down'. They have since resumed trading
Read moreWednesday broker round-up - UDPATE
21st Dec 2011 08:51
HSBC: Investec reiterates buy with 800p target. Barclays: Investec reiterates buy with 330p target. Tesco: Nomura maintains buy rating and 500p target. AstraZeneca: Nomura keeps reduce recommendation and 2,400p target. Thorntons: Investec puts 35p target under review, hold rating kept; Merchant
Read moreLondon open: Wall Street tailwinds lift London
21st Dec 2011 08:34
Following last night's strong showing on Wall Street, UK shares are heading higher this morning, although in more leisurely fashion than their US counterparts did yesterday. Investors do not seem to be too fazed by credit ratings agency Moody's saying Britain's cherished triple-AAA credit rating co
Read moreLondon pre-open: London not bothered by Moody's warning
21st Dec 2011 07:31
Investors do not seem to be too fazed by credit ratings agency Moody's saying Britain's cherished triple-AAA credit rating could be under threat if the Eurozone crisis worsens. Moody's Investors Service said last night: "Any additional weakening in the macro-economic outlook or a need to support th
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