Market news round up, upgrades & downgrades courtesy of Cantor Index

UK Corporate Announcements

Wolseley announces full year revenues of £12.7bn from £12.06bn and announces a trading profit of £658m from £596m, ahead of the forecasts and proposes a £350m special dividend

Babcock International states that it remains confident that it will meet its full year expectations

St Ives announces full year underlying revenues of £327m up 10.3%

First Group states that it is trading in line with the forecasts

UK Market News

The BAE and EADS deal remains doubtful due to the high level interest from UK, European and US government agencies

The Nationwide had UK prices down 0.4% in September, down 1.4% year on year to an average of £163,964

The UK press details how the FSA has charged four men, including a former senior broker at Deutsche Bank, of being involved in a £3m insider trading conspiracy

Paul Volcker is due to appear at the UK parliament commission on banking standards

The BCC states that the UK government needs to do more to revive the stagnating economy

The UK sells £3.5bn in bonds today and £1.5bn in bills

UK Analyst Upgrades

Imi Rated New Overweight At Morgan Stanley, Pt 1,123P

UK Analyst Cuts

Inmarsat Cut To Neutral From Overweight At Hsbc

UK Insider Buying

CLS Holdings Plc, (CLI), 1 insider(s) bought 2,264 shares, £7.21

Homeserve Plc, (HSV), 1 insider(s) bought 10,921 shares, £2.12

Invensys Plc, (ISYS), 8 insider(s) bought 3,789 shares, £2.36

Land Securities Group , (LAND), 1 insider(s) bought 1,750 shares, £7.7

National Grid Plc, (NG/), 1 insider(s) bought 5,000 shares, £6.87

UBM Plc, (UBM), 1 insider(s) bought 200,000 shares, £7.04

Workspace Group Plc, (WKP), 2 insider(s) bought 134,551 shares, £2.67

UK Insider Selling

Fuller Smith & Turner -, (FSTA),  insider(s) sold 3,505 shares, £7.12

Vectura Group Plc, (VEC), 1 insider(s) sold 54,800 shares, £0.87

Major European Companies Reporting

Wolseley PLC, R, 1.646

European Market Summary

Moody’s suggests that Spanish banks could need as much as €105bn, more than double what the Spanish government estimates would be required last week

A former UBS trader has testified that he also made the same type of unauthorised trades that Adoboli placed, and the defence team alleges that KPMG were aware of the ‘umbrella’ account, as the fraud case continues

S&P 500 Companies Reporting

Mosaic Co/The, Q1, 1.159

S&P 500 Ex Dividends (gross):- Cisco Systems Inc, CSCO, (.14),  Discover Financial Services, DFS, (.10),  Legg Mason Inc, LM, (.11)

Major US Stock Movers After Hours

S&P details that Petsmart is to replace Sunoco in its blue chip S&P 500, it gained 3% on the news

Fifth & Pacific came off over 13% as it announces it was cutting its full year EBITDA forecasts

US Market News

Bernanke has stated that the Fed is planning to keep rates low even after the economy starts to strengthen

Microsoft is in focus as Google traded with a higher market cap at one stage yesterday, as the young start ups continue with the strong growth story while Microsoft has traded largely sideways over the past decade

JP Morgan details that Q3 equities trading volumes are down 14% from last year, and the fifth consecutive quarterly drop of more than 8%, as volumes and sentiment stay low, despite equity markets up towards all time highs

JP Morgan is also in the news as New York Attorney General has filed a civil lawsuit against the bank over mortgage backed securities sold by Bear Stearns, which it bought in 2008, and seeks unspecified damages but does cite losses of $22bn

SAC Capital announces that it has put Michael Steinberg on paid leave after an analysts that reported to him has pleaded guilty in an insider dealing case

Workday announces plans to raise as much as $500m through an IPO which would value the office operations software maker at around $3.5bn and would be the largest tech IPO since Facebook

Major Global IPOs Due Today

LifeLock Inc, (LOCK), 15.7m, USD 9.5 – 11.5

Luxfer Holdings PLC, (LXFR), 8m, USD 12 – 14

Regulus Therapeutics Inc, (RGLS), 4.5455m, USD 10 – 12

Talanx AG, (3438Z), 26.01m, EUR 17.3 – 20.3

FX Summary

The RBA overnight has cut the interest rate to 3.25% down 25bp largely in line with the forecasts as it sees the growth outlook for next year a little weaker

The comments from Bernanke kept the dollar soft as the expectations stay high that QE will continue

Commodity Summary

Gold prices continue the break from the recent consolidation, and yesterday traded just shy of $1,800, and up at levels not seen since last November

Economic Data Due

07:00 UK September Nationwide House Prices, 0.0% exp. 1.3% previous

09:30 UK September PMI Construction, 50.0 exp. 49.0 previous

10:00 Eurozone August PPI 0.5% exp. 0.4% previous

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