RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO EVENING REPORT

8 SEPTEMBER 2010

The FTSE 100 emerged from the lunch-time session nursing a small gain, with the majority of the blue-chip index’s constituents in positive territory.

Leading the way was chip designer ARM Holdings. UBS issued a downbeat assessment of the European semiconductor market but it has made an exception of chip designer ARM, and raised its price target for the Cambridge firm from 305p to 370p. The shares were trading up 5% at 387p.

BP is also higher after the release of its internal investigation into the causes of the tragic accident on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year. The investigation found that no single factor caused the Macondo well tragedy. Rather, a sequence of failures involving a number of different parties led to the explosion and fire which killed 11 people and caused widespread pollution in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year.

Vodafone is selling its 3.2% stake in China Mobile for £4.3bn ($6.6bn) in cash as part of the mobile phone giant’s strategy of exiting its smaller investments. It will return about 70% of the money to shareholders through share buybacks and use the rest to slim down its £33bn debt pile.

Finally, Housebuilder Barratt cut its losses sharply last year and made a net profit in the second half as the housing market rebounded, though reservations have turned down recently. Losses before tax and exceptional items were £33.0m with a profit before tax and exceptional items of £15.5m in the second half. The loss before tax for the year to June was £162.9m. The stock turns lower, however, taking sector peers Taylor Wimpey and Redrow with it.

THE FTSE 100 CLOSED UP 21 @ 5429

THE DOW JONES AT 4.30 IS UP 63 @ 10,404

THE NASDAQ COMP AT 4.30 IS UP 20 @ 2229

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD 1.5515 GBP – EUR 1.2187