RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO 15th October 2012

      Morning Report

The FTSE 100 is up 0.3%, maintaining small gains. With nothing on the European economic calendar of note, the focus will be on Citigroup's results, released before the open of Wall Street. Last week, JPMorgan's results beat expectations and Wells Fargo's were a bit light and both closed in the red. Also, investors are still keen to hear about Spain's bailout stance ahead of the EU summit on Oct. 18-19. Volumes are particularly low this morning.

Part-nationalised lender Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) fell this morning after confirming that Spanish banking giant Santander is going back on its agreement to purchase 316 RBS branches in the UK.

Heading the other way was sweeteners and food products group Tate & Lyle after Jefferies upgraded the stock from 'hold' to 'buy' and hiked its target price from 690p to 800p. The broker said this morning that it sees improved earnings from 2014 on better execution in the SFI division, improved sucralose pricing and realisation of £75m platform synergies.

Goldman Sachs dampened the mood in the mining sector this morning after downgrading its ratings for a host of resource stocks. The US bank cut its recommendation for Antofagasta, Evraz, Kazakhmys, Anglo American, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton this morning.

Telecoms group BT was also a faller after Barclays Capital lowered its rating to 'equal weight' and cut its target price for the shares from 260p to 230p.

Tullow Oil gained after saying that it is to take a stake in Block 9 (Tooq licence), Baffin Bay, north-western Greenland, which is operated by Maersk Oil.

Information management firm SDL fell after warning that ongoing litigation with a former Trados shareholder on the sale of Trados to SDL in 2005 could lead to costs of up to $3m. "The SDL board believes the case to be completely without merit. We anticipate that the case will progress to a court hearing in 2013," the group explained in a company statement.

Foam products supplier Filtrona was in demand after firing on all cylinders in the third quarter with like-for-like sales up by one-tenth year-on-year.

Nickel and zinc miner Talvivaara was unwanted after saying that heavy rainfall in the third quarter is proving a major obstacle in its aim of mining 17,000 tonnes of nickel this year.













THE FTSE 100             @ 10:00        Up         19      @      5812 THE DOW JONES            closed         Up         2       @     13328 THE NASDAQ               closed         Down       5       @      3044

Exchange Rates GBP – USD        @       10:00                  1.6062 GBP - EURO      @       10:00                  1.2395

Gold USD/Oz                             $1,746