RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO 15th November 2012

Morning Report

The FTSE 100 trades down, maintaining losses after UK retail sales figures for October show a 0.8% drop, against expectations of a 0.2% fall. Wood Group is the worst performer, with traders pointing to disappointment that the stock was not added to the MSCI Standard Europe in the annual review Wednesday. Resolution is also under pressure after 3Q results.

Still to come, investors will turn their attention to a slew of US data releases. CPI, Empire State manufacturing and initial jobless claims and the Philly Fed index.

Life insurer Resolution fell after a somewhat mixed update, saying that new business profitability is continuing to improve, but that its international business is "below par" and it will incur higher costs from IT updates.

Oil giant BP fell after announcing that it is close to resolving claims with US regulators relating to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010. The resolutions are expected to represent the largest criminal penalty in history.

Rexam, the consumer packaging giant, dropped after revealing weakness in its Healthcare division, despite a broadly 'in line' performance in the third quarter across the group.

British Gas owner Centrica fell after saying that average UK residential gas consumption for the first ten months of 2012 was 9% higher than for the same period of 2011, while average electricity consumption was 1% lower.

Sector peer National Grid was also lower despite saying that underlying pre-tax profit of £1,154m for the six months to the end of September was up 21% from £953m the year before.

Copper miner Antofagasta was also down after a decline in copper and molybdenum prices partially offset the benefits of increased volumes in the first nine months of 2012.

THE FTSE 100     @ 10:00    Down     22       @      5699 THE DOW JONES    closed    Down    185       @     12570                                THE NASDAQ          closed    Down    37       @      2846                                                           

Exchange Rates GBP – USD        @   10:00    1.5845 GBP - EURO      @   10:00    1.2415

Gold $/ OZ        $1724