RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO      21st March 2012

     Evening Report

The FTSE 100 closed flat at 5891.95. With no major surprises emerging from either the Budget or the Bank of England minutes.

The retailers were on the rise today with Sainsbury leading the charge after fourth quarter like-for-like (LFL) sales beat expectations.

Meanwhile, George Osborne's Budget revealed that all-day trading on Sundays will be allowed from July 22nd to coincide with the Olympics and Paralympics, something that could be boosting the share prices of retailing peers Marks & Spencer and Morrison.

Utilities group National Grid made slight gains after the Budget was announced. The government said it wants to encourage investment in infrastructure, which includes funding from international pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, something which Nomura thinks is "supportive for companies planning to make large infrastructure investments such as National Grid."

Cigarettes group Imperial Tobacco was a high riser on the blue chip index despite its UK General Manager, Amal Pramanik, telling the Wall Street Journal that Osborne's increase in tobacco duty (announced in the Budget) is a "big mistake" that will "simply tempt more smokers to buy illicit tobacco products". The rise is expected to add around 37p to the cost of a standard pack of cigarrettes. However, Nomura said this morning that Imperial could be "susceptible to a take-over", which could be one reason for the price rise seen today.

On the downside was engineering group Weir due to a negative read-across from US oilfield services group Baker Hughes. The US firm has told investors to expect lower operating profits in the first three months of the year due to, “rapidly changing market conditions in the pressure pumping product line in North America and seasonality in all international markets."

Kazakhstan-focused miner Eurasian Natural Resources Corp (ENRC) fell despite giving a bullish outlook statement alongside its strong 2011 results. The board is to have another go at persuading shareholders to give the thumbs-up to the company taking full control of Kazakh coal producer Shubarkol Komir JSC. The company called off the proposed acquisition back in November, responding to pressure from shareholders who said that the uncertain macro-economic environment made it a bad time for the $600m buy-out.

THE FTSE 100 closed                   Up        16       @      5,907 THE DOW JONES @ 17:00                 Down      11       @    13,158 THE NASDAQ @ 17:00                    Up       12       @      3086







Exchange Rates

GBP – USD       @      17:00                       1.5851 GBP - EURO     @      17:00                       1.2005