RAMSEY CROOKALL

8th  September

Morning Report

The FTSE 100 up 0.79%, posting moderate gains, but with investors still cautious ahead of Thursday's central-bank rate decisions and U.S. labor data. Marks & Spencer is among the top gainers, up nearly 6% amid talk that private equity may want to buy Brandes Investment Partners' 3.7% stake in the company. As far the BOE is concerned, the MPC is widely expected to keep rates at 0.5%.

Supermarket chain Morrisons’ focus on value helped it post sales and profits ahead of expectations in the half year to 31 July. Pre-tax profits rose to £449m from £412m the previous year. Turnover climbed to £8.7bn from £8.1bn, while like-for-like sales rose by 2.2%.

Property company British Land has closed and drawn funds on a $480m US private placement bond issue, the largest US private placement transaction by a UK Real Estate Investment Trust. The placement, originally launched at $200m, was three times oversubscribed, prompting the company to increase the size of the issue.

Home Retail is the retailer hogging the limelight, rising nearly 10% even after it saw like-for-like (LFL) sales in the former dive 8.6% from a year earlier in the 13 weeks to 27 August, while the latter saw LFL sales fall 3.1% year-on-year. The company said the performance during the quarter was in line with expectations.

THE FTSE 100 at 10:35                         Up         161        @       5318

THE DOW JONES closed                          Up        275        @      11414                      NASDAQ COM closed                             Up         75         @       2548          Commodities Spot Gold $/Oz           $1827 Brent Crude Oil          $115.41 September Delivery     Exchange Rates GBP – USD           1.5934 GBP - EURO          1.1328