RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO 31st July 2012

Evening Report

The FTSE 100 ends 1% lower at 5635.28, weighed down by some weak corporate numbers. However, volumes have been low with investors wary of taking on strong positions ahead of Wednesday's FOMC meeting and Thursday's BOE and ECB announcements.

Vedanta, Rio Tinto, Xstrata, Randgold, Glencore and Polymetal made good gains, boosted by Polymetal, Vedanta and Xstrata which all impressed with their second-quarter and first-half production reports this morning.

UK banking groups Barclays and RBS were both seen taking a hit after earnings from their European counterparts UBS and Deutsche Bank came up short of forecasts.

Weaker oil and gas prices and a cut in output due to an extensive maintenance programme hit BP's profits hard in the second quarter, pushing the share price in the bottom spot.

Scottish engineering firm Weir fell after advising that full-year profits are likely to come in below market expectations if there is no pick-up in the upstream Oil & Gas markets. Results from speciality chemicals group Elementis galvanised the share price after the cash-rich group announced plans to return surplus funds to shareholders on a regular basis. Profit before tax in the first half of 2012 rose 12% to $79.0m from $70.6m the year before, on the back of a marginal improvement in revenue to $401.3m from $396.0m in the first half of 2011.

Funeral services provider Dignity was also up after it said an increase in the number of deaths in the UK had helped boost profits in the first half.

THE FTSE 100             closed          Down        58      @      5,635 THE DOW JONES            @ 17:00         Down         7     @     13065 THE NASDAQ               @ 17:00         Up           8    @      2954 Exchange Rates GBP – USD        @      17:00          1.5686 GBP - EURO      @      17:00          1.2738