| CATEGORY: MARKET REPORT - CLOSE SECTOR: FOOD PRODUCERS |
London close: Poor end for Footsie |
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Thu 04 Sep 2008
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Market Movers
FTSE 100 5,365.00 -2.45%
techMARK 1,437.91 -2.23%
FTSE 250 9,173.80 -2.09%
LONDON (SHARECAST) - Footsie slumped near the close as Wall Street tumbled on weak US jobs and retail sales numbers.
In the UK, the Bank of England gave little relief to a struggling UK economy and held interest rates at 5% despite another grim set of monthly statistics from the Halifax on the health of the UK housing market.
The mortgage lender says prices fell by another 1.8% in August and a whopping 12.7% year on year. The drop for the three months to August versus the same time last year was 10.9%. Bradford & Bingley and Johnston Press were casualties.
Special situations dominated the risers. Anglo Dutch consumer group Unilever was the best performer after it named Nestle's Paul Polman as chief executive Patrick Cescau's replacement. Cescau, who is retiring at the end of the year, has worked for Unilever for the last 35 years and has served as chief executive for the last four.
BP was up early on news it has signed a memorandum of understanding to restructure TNK-BP, Russia’s third largest oil company. Talk of a bid from ExxonMobil boosted BG.
Hotel and restaurant group Whitbread gained after it said like-for-like sales across the group rose 7% in the 24 weeks to 14 August, with total sales increasing 14.2%. Positive broker coverage also helped send shares in Whitbread higher.
Cazenove, which reiterated its ‘outperform’ rating on the stock, said the statement showed that any signs of a slowdown are limited to the group’s Costa Coffee chain.It pointed to ‘impressive growth’ at its Premier Inn hotel chain. Another broker, Investec, repeated its ‘buy’ advice on Whitbread.
In broker coverage JP Morgan moved its ratings on technology companies Invensys and Smiths Group in opposite directions on valuation grounds.
It upgraded engineer Invensys to ‘neutral’ from ‘underweight’, saying that the US appliance market was near a trough.
In response to press speculation, private equity group Hellman & Friedman has disclosed it is no longer part of the consortium contemplating a bid for publishing group Informa.
Higher costs of raw materials saw own label specialist McBride report a 30% fall in operating profits to £21.4m for the year despite revenue increasing 18% to £700.9m. The group said it had made a satisfactory start to the new year.
Network monitoring firm Endace said its strategy for growth of the business remains on track as it saw continued growth in sales across its main verticals and geographical segments in the first 5 months of the year.
European Islamic Investment Bank said despite challenging market conditions it has continued to progress in the first half of 2008 as it swung back into profit for the period.
First Calgary, the oil and gas company that specializes in Algeria, confirmed that it received a number of proposals, which could lead to the sale of the company or a major asset disposal. The group announced the news late yesterday after shares jumped in London and Toronto.
China-focused drinks distributor ADSL jumped on news of an agreed bid from Yarraman Winery.
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