RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO 15th June 2012

Evening Report

The FTSE 100 ends 0.2% higher at 5478.81, in the black although underperforming European peers. Equity markets overall have been buoyed by reports that central banks are ready with liquidity measures if there is chaos after Sunday's Greek election. UK banks end sharply higher after the BOE announces support measures. Meanwhile, Greece is the focus, with the attention squarely on the potential implications of the election result.

Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking and Barclays all rose after banks reacted positively to the initiatives from the the UK government and the Bank of England to help banks grease the wheels of British commerce. Chancellor George Osborne said the plan, which reports have valued at between £80bn - £140bn, showed the UK was "not powerless in the face of the eurozone debt storm". A second scheme, called Extended Collateral Term Repo (ECTR) Facility, will give banks access to short-term money to manage "exceptional market stresses". 

The news also pushed mining stocks higher, with Vedanta Resources, Kazakhyms and Eurasian Natural Resources all making strong gains.

Meanwhile, temporary power and temperature control specialist Aggreko fell despite highlighting the boost it expects to get in the second half of the year from the London Olympics. The problem is that in the first half of the year, revenue growth has slowed down in the second quarter. The group said it expects first half underlying group revenue will grow by around 15% and trading profit by around 20%, indicating a slow-down from the first quarter performance when both its International Power Projects and Local divisions delivered underlying revenue growth of more than 20%.

TV operators BSkyB and BT in the wake of the eye-watering sums paid by both to the Football Association for the rights to televise live matches from the Premiership.

Imagination Technology rose on reports it has unveiled a collaboration with TXMC that will ensure that licensees of all of Imagination's IP cores can optimize speed, area and power consumption on TSMC's most-advanced 28nm and below processes.

THE FTSE 100             closed          Up     11         @     5,478 THE DOW JONES            @ 17:00         Up     65         @     12717 THE NASDAQ               @ 17:00         Up     22         @      2858

Exchange Rates GBP – USD        @      17:00            1.5657 GBP - EURO       @      17:00            1.2394