RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO

28th August 2012

Evening  Report

The FTSE 100 finished flat as investors take a step back after recent gains and look to Fed Chairman Bernanke's speech at the Jackson Hole symposium Friday. "The longer markets hold on to the expectation of further central bank intervention and fail to get it, the more unlikely we will see any major moves to the upside. The continued lack of clarity over the matter makes investors unwilling to commit further to equities and so we could see a few days more of narrow trading ranges and low volumes ahead of Ben Bernanke's words of wisdom.

B&Q owner Kingfisher was a heavy  faller after Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded its rating on the stock to 'underperform'.

Security giant G4S fell after expressing disappointment over the problems related to its Olympics contract, saying that it will incur a £50m loss on the contract in the first half. Meanwhile, the company said that a restructuring of its overhead structure will lead the loss of 1,100 jobs. Nevertheless, the firm revealed that turnover at constant exchange rates rose 7.5% while profits were flat.

Miners were firmly out of favour this morning on concerns over the Japanese economy. BHP Billiton fell after announcing the sale of its Yeelirrie uranium deposit in Western Australia to Cameco for $430m. BHP and sector peers ENRC, Kazakhmys and Vedanta were also lower after Morgan Stanley reduced its target price for all four stocks.

Drugs giant AstraZeneca was lower after saying that it has appointed Roche's Chief Operating Officer as its new Chief Executive Officer. Meanwhile, the firm also announced that the European Commission has granted marketing authorisation to its ZINFORO treatment. Sector peer GlaxoSmithKline was suffering from a downgrade by UBS.

Bunzl, the international distribution and outsourcing group, fell despite saying that pre-tax profits and revenues in the first half rose 9% and 7%, respectively

THE FTSE 100 Closed                       Flat                       @  5,775

THE DOW JONES @ 16.30                     Down          9            @   13,114

THE NASDAQ COMP @ 16.30                  Down           2            @  3,071

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD     @ 16.30            1.5828 GBP - EURO    @ 16.30            1.2594