RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO

MIDDAY REPORT

29 OCTOBER 2010

London has made modest early gains despite a poor session in Asia and unconvincing display on Wall Street overnight.

British Airways is lower even though it swung to a profit in the first half as the airline improved yields and cut costs. It made a pre-tax profit of £158m in the six months ended 30 September compared a loss of £292m a year ago. Revenue jumped 8% to £4.45bn due to improved yields.

Elsewhere, WPP was also upbeat. The ad giant upped like-for-like revenues by 4.1% in the first nine months of its current year as companies restarted advertising spending after the recession with traditional ad spending outstripping online. Total revenue rose by 6.3% to £6.69bn with third quarter sales up 12.2% to £2.3bn. Operating margins also improved over last year.

Prudential and Aviva are the best performers alongside oil groups Cairn, BP and Royal Dutch Shell.

AstraZeneca will receive a $100m upfront payment from Daiichi Sankyo after agreeing a deal for the co-promotion and supply of Nexium, a proton pump inhibitor, in Japan. The Anglo-Swedish drugs giant will co-promote the product, used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease and stomach ulcers, once it is approved for use in Japan, making and developing the product, while Daiichi Sankyo will deal with distribution.

Finally, oil services group Hunting expects to exceed current full year market expectations after trading remained very strong between July and October.

THE FTSE 100 AT NOON IS DOWN 17 @ 5660

THE DOW JONES CLOSED DOWN 12 @ 11,113 THE NASDAQ COMP CLOSED UP 4 @ 2507

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD 1. 5915

GBP – EUR 1. 1494

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