RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO
3rd August 2012
Morning Report
The FTSE 100 is trading up 0.9% despite a drop in July's services PMI to 51.0
from June's reading of 51.3.
Royal Bank of Scotland advanced after saying that the performances of its ongoing
businesses in the first half were more resilient than before. RBS's operating profit
in the first half of 2012 was £1,834m, down from £1,966m the year before, after a
£125m provision for costs arising from the technology incident in June 2012 and a
£50m provision for interest rate swap mis-selling. Sector peers Barclays and Standard
Chartered were also in demand.
Heading the other way was airline group IAG after saying that it would fail to achieve
its 'break-even' operating target this year after it registered a steep loss in the six
months to June 30th as fuel costs jumped and losses at its Spanish airline increased.
Mining group BHP Billiton gained after saying that its Chief Executive Officer decided
to forgo his 2012 bonus after a $2.84bn write-down on US shale gas assets.
Pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline rose after completing its $3.6bn acquisition of
Human Genome Sciences (HGS), its long-term biotech partner.
Second-quarter earnings at Inmarsat were down but the satellite operator was encouraged
by progress in returning its core Global MSS business to growth, causing shares to jump
early on.
THE FTSE 100 @ 10:00 Up 53 @ 5,715
THE DOW JONES closed Down 92 @ 12878
THE NASDAQ closed Down 10 @ 2909
Exchange Rates
GBP – USD @ 10:00 1.5543
GBP - EURO @ 10:00 1.2725
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