RAMSEY CROOKALL

21st  July

Afternoon Report

The FTSE 100 is up 0.8%, climbing a tad higher with banking stocks leading as debt contagion fears recede after E.U. leaders' lifeline to Greece. Barclays is up 2.9% with  Royal Bank of Scotland improving  4.5%. The improvement in risk appetite helps commodity prices recover, in turn lifting mining stocks across the index. Lonmin is up 2.6% with  Kazakhmys rising  2.4%. The London market is now around the 5960 level  closer to the psychologically important 6000. Eyes turn to Wall Street's open.

Today’s standout stock is easyJet, with the budget airline up 15% after saying it expects full-year pre-tax profits to fall in the range of £200m to £230m. Market consensus is for an adjusted profit before tax of £183.1m.

Similarly, paper and packaging firm Mondi expects profits for the first half of 2011 to be “considerably higher” than in the same period last year, it said in an announcement today, but its gains are more modest.

New World Resources, the central Europe focused coal miner, has reiterated its full year production and sales targets, but prices have been falling. The shares are lower. It said average agreed price of coking coal for delivery in the third calendar quarter of 2011 is €192 a tonne, a decrease of 9% from the second quarter realised price, "in line with lower international prices both for hard and semi-soft coking coal."

Mobile phone networks giant Vodafone has seen revenue from its core business grow 1.5% in the second quarter of 2011 although the firm is certainly struggling against some serious headwinds in some markets, particularly in southern Europe. The group reiterated its previous performance guidance for the current financial year.

GlaxoSmithKline PLC is expected to report that sales in the second quarter fell again, but at a slower rate than in previous quarters, and reiterate confidence that actual sales growth will return from 2012 on, helped by new products and further expansion in emerging markets.

THE FTSE 100 at 12:00                   Up                 53           @      5953

THE DOW JONES closed                    Up                 152          @      12724 

NASDAQ COMP closed                      Up                  20          @      2834                                          Exchange Rates

GBP – USD           1.6304 GBP - EURO          1.1316