RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO 6th June 2012

Morning Report

The FTSE 100 is up 1.4% at 5332.82, rising further. UK construction PMI falls 1.4 to 54.4 in May, broadly in line with expectations. Investors will now be looking ahead to the ECB's rate announcement at 11:45.

Commodities prices gained early on after the Australian GDP data and ahead of the ECB decision, meaning that mining stocks were among the best performers in London. Fresnillo, Randgold, Anglo American and Kazakhmys surged in the opening hour.

Financials were also in demand with Man Group, Barclays, Lloyds and HSBC registering impressive performances. Barclays announced this morning that its subsidiary Absa Bank has agreed to buy the accounts and receivables relating to the private label store cards of Edcon Proprietary in South Africa for around £0.8bn.

Lloyds revealed that it is to sell a portfolio of Australian real estate loans for £388m. Meanwhile, HSBC said that the merger of its Omani operations with Oman International Bank has been approved and completed.

Telecoms giant Vodafone dropped after confirming that it is talking with Australian peer Telstra about buying its New Zealand subsidiary, TelstraClear. According to the Financial Times, the deal could be worth around A$300-400m, or £191-255m.

Energy firm Premier Oil rose after seeing an encouraging drilling result on the Carnaby exploration well 28/09-5A in the Central North Sea Block 28/9.

India-focused integrated energy company Essar Energy was also higher after completing its optimisation project at its Vadinar refinery four months ahead of schedule.

THE FTSE 100              @ 10:00            Up       66     @      5,326 THE DOW JONES            closed              Up       26     @     12127 THE NASDAQ               closed              Up       18    @      2778 Exchange Rates

GBP – USD       @      10:00                   1.5466 GBP - EURO     @      10:00                   1.2359



*** RBS completed a 1 for 10 Consolidation 6th June 2012 ***

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