RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO

MIDDAY REPORT

2 NOVEMBER 2010

Results from the big guns reporting this morning have generally been favourable, helping the FTSE 100 to notch up decent gains so far.

Beleaguered oil giant BP comfortably beat third quarter profit forecasts though it has had to take an additional $7.7bn charge in respect of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The market had been expecting underlying net income on a replacement cost basis to be around $4.5-$4.6bn, but after what it termed a “strong operating performance” BP boosted profits by 18% from a year earlier to $5.5bn.

E;sewhere, cigarettes maker Imperial Tobacco topped market forecasts with its full year profits, and took a big bite out of its debt mountain. Adjusted profit before tax in the year to 30 September rose 10% to £2,467m from £2,233m the year before. The market had pencilled in a figure of £2.320m. Net debt was reduced over the period by £1.5bn to £9.3bn.

BG Group grew third quarter earnings by 27% and now thinks there’s an extra 2.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) at its oilfields in the Santo Basin offshore Brazil, 34% more than previous estimates. Best estimates of gross resources in the Tupi, Iracema, and Guará fields increase to 10.8bn boe from 8.1bn boe before.

Finally, insurer Aviva is on track to deliver strong profitable growth for 2010 after a decent third quarter following “good sales growth” from both life and general insurance businesses. Worldwide total sales were up 5% during the first nine months of 2010 at £35.9bn, long-term savings sales rose 6% to £28.6bn, and total life and pension sales also grew by 6% to £25.6bn.

THE FTSE 100 AT NOON IS UP 59 @ 5753

THE DOW JONES CLOSED DOWN 6 @ 11,124 THE NASDAQ COMP CLOSED UP 2 @ 2504

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD 1. 60

GBP – EUR 1. 14

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