RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO
EVENING REPORT 6 JANUARY 2011
It was almost three out of three days of gains so far this year for the top share
index, however, the FTSE 100 lost its earlier gains to finish 24 points down at 6019.
Chip designer ARM was the best performing blue-chip, this afternoon, adding to yesterday’s
strong gains. Fading US technology giant Microsoft confirmed at the Consumer Electronics
Show in Las Vegas that it is planning a new operating system for handheld tablet computers
and smartphones that use ARM’s chip designs. The decision represents a huge breakthrough for
ARM. Traditionally, Microsoft has developed its operating systems to work with the chip
design architecture of Intel, so much so that the Windows desktop environment is often referred
to as “Wintel”.
Elsewhere, uncertainty in the retail sector prompted McBride, which makes toothpaste and other
household items for supermarkets to sell under their own labels, to warn that its full-year
performance could be at the lower end of its expectations. The shares have taken a sharp dive.
Growth in Central and Eastern Europe has been driving revenues higher but the UK has been very
competitive, McBride said. This, “combined with our previously announced time-lag in cost recovery,
leads the board to expect that trading profit for the first half will be around £20m,” the company
said. Household goods maker Reckitt Benckiser slides in sympathy.
Nichols, the soft drinks group behind the fruity beverage Vimto, expects profitability for the
full year to be ahead of current market expectations after the strong performance of the first
half continued into the second.
Finally, heavy snow in December kept some film buffs away from Cineworld’s cinemas, but the
growing popularity of 3D animation films helped the company post a rise in sales over the full year.
THE FTSE 100 CLOSED DOWN 24 @ 6019
THE DOW JONES AT 4.30 IS DOWN 35 @ 11,686
THE NASDAQ COMP AT 4.30 IS UP 1 @ 2703
Exchange Rates
GBP – USD 1.54
GBP – EUR 1.19
Thursday 6th, January 2011 05:11pm.
