RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO

EVENING REPORT 7 February 2011

Leading shares saw gains trimmed over the lunch time session but the FTSE 100 remains comfortably in positive territory, due in no small part to the strength of mining stocks,

Gold miner Randgold Resources is in demand after it shrugged off operational and political setbacks in 2010 to post a sharp increase in profit, helped by the increase in the price of gold. Profit before income tax and financing activities for 2011 is forecast to be between 750,000 and 790,000 ounces, which represents an increase of more than 70% on the preceding year.

Peers Xstrata, Vedanta and Rio Tinto are also higher.

Oil producer Cairn Energy is in favour as talks concerning its proposed sale of a majority stake in Cairn India to miner Vedanta Resources are in progress.

BP is deciding whether to buy a 30-45% stake in the D6 hydrocarbon block in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin off the east coast of India.

Elsewhere, banks are going well after weekend reports suggested big bonuses won't spark a crackdown from the government. RBS and Lloyds are the best of the sector so far.

first time since 2007. The company posted a profit before tax of £37.5m for the 12 months to 30 November compared with a £119.4m loss in 2009 and £73.1m deficit the year before that.

Finally, on the rise is international engineering and project management company AMEC, which has made its second acquisition of the month, purchasing the Australian engineering consultancy Zektingroup for AU$48m.

THE FTSE 100 CLOSED UP 53 @ 6051

THE DOW JONES AT 4.40 IS UP 87 @ 12,179

THE NASDAQ COMP AT 4.40 IS UP 23 @ 2792

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD 1.6118 GBP - EURO 1.1886