RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO

20th May 2011 Morning Report

The FTSE 100 is up 0.9% with corporate earnings and a raft of broker upgrades boosting investor sentiment and the appetite for risk. On the data front, preliminary euro-zone consumer confidence figures for May are due this afternoon.

BP is in focus again, but the oil giant’s shares are higher after it said MOEX, part of the Japanese trading house Mitsui and the 10% owner of the Macondo oil well that blew up so disastrously last year, has agreed to pay the British oil giant $1.1m (£680,000).

Pub group Mitchells & Butlers’s trumpeting of the success of its move into food sales has failed to prevent sharp falls in its share price this morning. It made more money from food than drink for the first time in the half year to 9 April, but pre-tax profits at the All Bar One and O’ Neills owner fell to £43m from £72m in the same period the previous year on total revenues that fell to £946m from £1.04bn.

Scottish and Southern Energy, the utility company, bumped up its dividend a bit more than expected. The full year dividend has been hiked 7.1% to 75p from 70p last year, a shade above market expectations of a 74.8p pay-out. Adjusted profit before tax in the year to March 31st rose 1.6% to £1,310m from £1,290m the year before, topping the market consensus forecast of £1.24bn.

Shares in HMV have rose after the CD, DVD and book retailer said it has agreed to sell i ts bookshop chain has reached agreement on the sale of its bookshop chain Waterstones to the Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut, for £53m.

THE FTSE 100 at  9:45                             Up      56      @   6012

THE DOW JONES closed                              Up      45      @   12605

THE NASDAQ COMP closed                            Up      8       @   2823

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD           1.6266 GBP - EURO         1.1348