RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO April 10th  2012 Morning Report

The FTSE 100 is down 0.9% off initial lows though sentiment remains downbeat. Disappointing trade surplus data out of China weighs on basic resources stocks. FTSE 350 mining index down 1.5% as concerns over a hard landing for China's economy persist. Also, investors are still smarting from Friday's worse-than-expected US nonfarm payrolls data.

The banks were leading the decline in London early on, with Barclays, Royal Bank f Scotland and Lloyds registering losses. Banks across Europe were the worst performers on Tuesday morning on the back of weak US data - the STOXX Europe 600 Banks index fell by 2.3%. HSBC was falling after saying that it is in talks about a possible sale of its retail banking and wealth management business in Korea.

Mining giant Vedanta Resources continues to see reduced iron ore sales as a result of the mining ban in the Karnatka state of south-western India. Sales of iron ore in the three months to the end of March were 5.2m tonnes, compared with the 6.6m sold in the same period of 2011.

Glencore International fell after confirming that it is embroiled in a legal dispute as a result of its aluminium supply deal with UC RUSAL, the world's largest aluminium producer.

Russian miner Polymetal was also in demand after it celebrated its first gold pour at the Amursk POX facility last week and expects full capacity at the plant later this year Cobham, which specialises in meeting the demand for data, connectivity and bandwidth in defence, security and commercial environments, fell after announcing that it is to have another crack at Danish satellite communications outfit Thrane and Thrane.

Insurance firm Lancashire Holdings was out of favour after rolling over a credit facility with its bankers for another five years

THE FTSE 100             @ 10:00        Down        51       @      5,671 THE DOW JONES           closed         Down        130      @    13929 THE NASDAQ              closed          Down        33       @     3047 Exchange Rates GBP – USD     @     10:00                      1.5861 GBP - EURO     @     10:00                      1.2118



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