RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO 30th October 2012

 Morning Report

Stocks opened strongly on Tuesday morning with mining stocks making gains and oil giant BP providing a lift after raising its quarterly dividend, as markets rebounded following a subdued day yesterday on the back of Hurricane Sandy hitting the east coast of America.

Integrated oil giant BP raised its dividend on the back of forecast-beating third-quarter results. Shares jumped 4% early on. The quarterly dividend has rose to nine cents from eight cents in the second quarter. The group's dividend payment used to be a mainstay of UK pension funds before it was suspended in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil well disaster, but the group resumed dividend payments at the beginning of last year.

Mining stocks such as Rio Tinto, Kazakhmys, EVRAZ and ENRC were performing well this morning as metals prices advanced.

Profit growth at Imperial Tobacco was broadly in line with expectations in the year to the end of September, helping the firm to raise its payout ratio and increase its full- year dividend by over a tenth. Shares gained in the opening hour.

Babcock International and Rolls-Royce gained after signing preliminary contracts with Hitachi - which has bought the UK nuclear project Horizon - to plan and deliver the new nuclear reactors at Wylfa and Oldbury in Gloucestershire.

Among the fallers was emerging markets-focused lender Standard Chartered despite seeing good momentum across its businesses and geographies in the third quarter.

THE FTSE 100              @ 10:00      Up    39      @      5834 THE DOW JONES            closed                                                                    THE NASDAQ               closed                                                                                                     

Exchange Rates GBP – USD        @       10:00             1.6057 GBP - EURO      @       10:00             1.2402

Gold $/ OZ                         $1713