RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO

MIDDAY REPORT

4 AUGUST 2010

London stocks have continued drifting downwards after a weak start as company updates fail to impress the market.

Shares in Next are sharply lower, down 136p at £20.36. The fashion retailer has noticed a ‘cooling’ in consumers’ demand in recent months, but still expects profits this year to rise between 6-11%, in line with its previous forecasts.

Lloyds is back in the black after posting a profit of £1.6 billion for the first half of 2010, twice as much as some analysts had forecast. The bank reported that total impairments more than halved to £6.55 billion from £13.4 billion a year ago. The shares are trading up 2p at 74p.

Standard Chartered shares slide 103p to £17.99 despite reporting sharply lower impairment provisions in the first half of 2010 as pre tax profit improved 10% last year. Profit before taxation of $3,116 million was up 10% from $2,838 million in the corresponding period of 2009.

Insurance giant Legal & General topped market expectations with its interim figures and has rewarded shareholders with a 20% hike in the dividend. European Embedded Value operating profit in the first half of 2010 was £589 million, down from £656 million the year before but ahead of most broker forecasts.

Santander’s UK arm has confirmed the acquisition of more than 300 branches from Royal Bank of Scotland for £1.65 billion. The deal will catapult Santander UK into the number two slot in UK retail banking. It already owns Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley.

Sales at Carpetright in the UK and Ireland fell 3.4% in the 13 weeks ended 31 July compared with a 1.4% increase this time last year. The decline accelerated to 4.2% in the rest of Europe from 3.1% last time.

THE FTSE AT 12.45 IS DOWN 54 @ 5341

THE DOW JONES CLOSED DOWN 38 @ 10,636

THE NASDAQ COMP CLOSED DOWN 11 @ 2283

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD 1. 594

GBP – EUR 1. 206