RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO 27th July 2012

Morning Report

The FTSE 100 is down 0.3% at 5555.15, falling into the red, after starting with small gains. The 'Mario magic' has faded say traders, referring to the upside een after the ECB president Mario Draghi voiced his support for the euro Thursday. It seems traders are booking profits, following Thursday's strong gains.

Barclays, apologised for the company's involvement in the LIBOR fixing scandal as he unveiled half-year profits ahead of market expectations, causing shares to jump high early on. Adjusted profit before tax in the first half of 2012 rose 13% to £4,227m from £3,725m in the first half of 2011, versus market expectations of £3,958m.

Banking peer HSBC was also in demand after saying that it will offload its 44% stake in card-processing joint venture Global Payments Asia-Pacific for $242m in cash.

Commodities giant Glencore rose as it came closer to completing the £3.9bn takeover of Canadian agricultural grain handler Viterra after being given the all-clear by Australian authorities.

Heading the other way was mining colossus Anglo American after first-half profits plunged from $6,571m to just $2,942m on the back of weaker commodity prices and input cost pressures.

Publishing group Pearson also fell after operating profits came in a little sky of expectations as it admitted that the first half has been a little tougher than expected for some parts of the business.

THE FTSE 100             @ 10:00      Down          18      @      5,554 THE DOW JONES            closed      Up             211     @     12887 THE NASDAQ               closed       Up             39      @      2893 Exchange Rates GBP – USD        @      10:00              1.5683 GBP - EURO      @      10:00              1.2805