RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO

MIDDAY REPORT

10TH NOVEMBER 2010

London has made a slow start with miners running into profit taking after their good run and a mixed response to the latest slug of trading updates.

Fears that the dividend of utility Scottish & Southern Energy might be under threat look premature, as the company bumped up its interim dividend by 6.7%. The company hiked its interim dividend from 21.0p last year to 22.4p this time round, and said it is on course for a full year dividend of at least 74.5p per share.

Another strong performance from its Asian operations helped Prudential's sales jump 17% over the last three months, though the US and UK also went well. Third quarter sales rose to £809m, up from £689m, to take the year-to-date total to £2.46bn, up 24%.

Sainsbury’s made enough money to keep analysts happy during the first half though and sales were pretty much as expected given the supermarket giant updated the market just a month ago. Profit before tax, the benefit of any property deals and other one-offs was £332m for the 28 weeks to 2 October, up 8.1% on last year. Analysts were looking for £330m.

Miners are weak after as profit takers cover some of their gains after the new highs for gold and silver yesterday. Randgold and Lonmin are the worst performers.

Finally, conveyor belt maker Fenner's results for the year ended 31 August showed revenue up 11% to £552.5m as demand improved markedly in the second half. Underlying pre-tax profit jumped 49% to £46.3m and was up 38% to £57m at the operating level.

THE FTSE 100 AT 12.15PM IS DOWN 29 @ 5845

THE DOW JONES CLOSED DOWN 8 @ 11,054 THE NASDAQ COMP CLOSED THE SAME @ 2579

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD 1.60

GBP – EUR 1.16