RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO April 18th 2012

Evening Report

The FTSE 100 closed 0.4% lower at 5745.29, but faring much better than European counterparts, with support from heavily-weighted mining stocks. The banks and financials suffered heavy losses. Overall sentiment towards the sector is downbeat, as the IMF warns that European banks are risking a new global financial crisis through the large-scale shrinking of their balance sheets.

Miners were among the best performers on the FTSE 100 with precious metals group Fresnillo rising strongly. The group this morning hailed a strong start to 2012 with gold production beating its own expectations and silver output being on target.

BHP Billiton was wanted after iron ore production at its Western Australian operations still hit record levels in the nine months to the end of March, despite cyclone activity depressing third quarter production. Sector peers Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Antofagasta were also on the up.

Meanwhile, a number of heavyweights on the index were providing a drag after going ex-dividend, including BAE Systems, Capita, Kazakhmys, Legal & General, Old Mutual, Petrofac, Resolution and Smith & Nephew.

International distribution and outsourcing group Bunzl also fell despite saying trading in 2012 has been strong, with the group seeing solid top line growth and an improvement in the group operating margin.

Another notable stock was supermarket firm Tesco which erased the morning's gains to trade slightly lower by the afternoon following its in-line full-year results. According to Merchant Securities, the stock is trading at a "justified" discount to sector peers Sainsbury and Morrison and is "fairly priced". The latter two stocks were putting in a solid performance today.

THE FTSE 100             closed        Down    21        @      5,745 THE DOW JONES            @ 17:00       Down   42        @     13073 THE NASDAQ               @ 17:00       Down    16        @      3025

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD       @      17:00              1.6024 GBP - EURO     @      17:00              1.2210

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