RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO April 27th 2012

Evening Report

The FTSE 100 finished up 0.5%, holding on to  gains despite the downgrade of Spain and disappointing 1Q US GDP. Next week, the economic highlight will be US nonfarm payrolls on Friday.

Hedge fund manager Man Group lead the FTSE higher after Societe Generale upgraded its rating on the stock from hold to buy. Earlier this week Swiss bank UBS suggested the hedge fund operator could be a takeover target as its shares have more than halved over the last year, and are down by a quarter over the last month alone.

Barclays made solid solid gains after Friday's annual general meeting (AGM) with the focus very much on the contentious issue of remuneration for top-level directors. "We will continue to be solely motivated by what is in the best long term interests of you, the shareholders and […] will be engaging even more closely going forward with our shareholders whilst ensuring a greater proportion of income and profit flows to shareholders," said Alison Carnwath from the group's Remuneration Committee.

Building group CRH and real estate investment trust British Land were also being helped higher by a ratings upgrade, this time from JP Morgan Cazenove which lifted its recommendation on both stocks to overweight.

Meanwhile pharmaceutical group Shire was among the worst performers today, pulling back of yesterday's well-received first-quarter results. AstraZeneca was also lower after yesterday scaling back full-year core earnings per share guidance and revealing that its CEO would be retiring.

Salamander Energy, an independent upstream oil and gas exploration and production firm, also fell after announcing that it is looking to raise around $201m through an underwritten rights issue to accelerate its drilling programme. Investec downgraded the stock from buy to hold this morning

THE FTSE 100             closed              Up       28      @    5,777 THE DOW JONES            @  17:00            Up      31     @     13236 THE NASDAQ               @ 17:00             Up       11      @     3062

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD       @      17:00                   1.6241 GBP - EURO     @      17:00                   1.2257