RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO

EVENING REPORT 9th Decembr 2010

A mostly better banking sector, gains for some of the mining heavyweights and a decent start on Wall Street offsett losses amongst the big retailers.

Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays went well following a good session in the overseas markets, though Asia-focused Standard Chartered missed out. Standard Chartered is propping up the leading index after warning that cost growth will exceed income growth as the bank invests in its businesses, opens new branches and hires new staff. Increasing competition for workers and higher compliance and regulatory costs have also hurt. The stock closed down 68p at £18.10.

High street chains Next and Marks & Spencer found the going tough. It was a similar story for mid-cap retailers Kesa, WH Smith and Debenhams.

Ashtead was another strong performer after growth in North America lifted second quarter sales at the equipment hire firm.

Also lower was Misys, the financial software specialist, which has had a pretty flat first half, held back by delays to some large orders, now expected to close in the second half. Estimated revenue for the six months ending 30 November is £160-162m compared with £160.6m a year ago, while adjusted operating profit is put at £20-23m versus £21.6m in 2009.

Elsewhere, men’s outfitter Moss Bros said the positive trend experienced earlier in the year has continued as the company heads into the crucial Christmas period. Like-for-like sales were up by 8.3% in the first 18 weeks of the second half. “We enter this key trading period in the best shape we have been in for some time,” says boss Brian Brick.

Finally, casino and bingo hall operator Rank saw full-year earnings coming in at the top end of analysts’ expectations of between 9.5p and 9.8p after a strong performance from Grosvenor Casinos. Across the group, like-for-like revenues in the nine weeks to 5 December were up by 3% while total revenues climbed 4%.

THE FTSE 100 CLOSED UP 13 @ 5807

THE DOW JONES AT 4.30 IS DOWN 25 @ 11,347

THE NASDAQ COMP AT 4.30 IS UP 1 @ 2200

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD 1.57 GBP – EUR 1.19