RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO 18th September 2012

 Morning Report

The FTSE 100 trades down 0.6%, staying lower and little changed by the release of UK CPI data. Annual inflation, as measured by the consumer prices index, slowed to 2.5% in August from 2.6% in July.  Cyclicals like miners and banks drag, following the recent strong gains seen in these sectors.

House-building and construction firm Galliford Try saw profits soar last year, paving the way for its full-year dividend pay-out to almost double. Group revenue in the year ended June 30th rose 17% to £1,504m from £1,284m the year before. Profit before tax surged 80% to £63.1m from £35.1m the previous year, while earnings per share jumped 89% to 60.9p from 32.2p last year. The divi rose in line with earnings, from 16p to 30p.

Department store group Debenhams saw like-for-like (LFL) sales rise 3.7% in the final 10 weeks of its financial year, which ran to September 1st. For the full-year, LFL sales were up 1.6%.

sports fashionwear firm JD Sports is having a few teething problems with the integration of the Black's Leisure store portfolio it acquired a while back. The firm said Blacks had made an initial loss of £10m, as expected, due to a critical lack of stock and unsustainable cost base.

Broker downgrades have led Aviva shares to fall, pushing the stock's dividend yield beyond seven per cent; BofA Merrill Lynch has downgraded Aviva to 'underperform', although the target price has been raised to 360p from 330p, while Deutsche bank has moved to a 'hold' recommendation and edged up the target price from 360p to 375p.

Electrical, digital and optical connections provider Volex said it expects revenue and profit for the year ending 31st March 2013 to fall short of previous company expectations after an unexpected change in demand from its largest customer in the consumer sector.

THE FTSE 100             @ 10:00               Down         35       @      5857 THE DOW JONES            closed                Down         40       @     13553 THE NASDAQ               closed                Down         5        @      3178

Exchange Rates GBP – USD        @       10:00                  1.6238 GBP - EURO      @       10:00                  1.2412