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

UK Corporate Announcements

Home Retail announces H1 sales of £2.53bn down 1% and states that a review identifies it needs to invest in its Argos unit and targets £4.5bn of Argos sales by full year 2018 and continues to plan cautiously

National Express states that the outlook for 2013 remains challenging but that it remains on target to meet its forecasts

British American Tobacco reports nine month revenues of £517bn up 4% and sees another solid year of good earnings growth despite the challenging market conditions and volumes being under pressure

Punch Taverns announces a full year EBITDA of £238m from £258m and states that its restructuring will deliver investor value

UK Market News

UK business press details on how Mervyn King indicated yesterday that the Bank of England tactics were starting to lose traction, and on the quite rapid market sell-off yesterday which saw the market give back the recent weeks gains and as the market continues to struggle to push back up through the psychologically important 6,000 area

The FT writes on how some major shareholders in Trinity Mirror are calling for an investigation into alleged phone hacking at its titles

BHP Billiton is reportedly considering the sale of its Pinto Valley Copper Mine in Arizona

UK Analyst Upgrades

Eurotunnel Pt Raised 1% To Eu7.5 At Exane; Kept At Outperform

G4S Raised To Outperform From Sector Perform At Rbc Capital

UK Analyst Cuts

Aggreko Cut to Outperform from Top Pick at RBC Capital

Wpp Removed From Ubs’S Most Preferred List

Wpp Cut To Neutral Vs Buy At Ubs

Major European Companies Reporting

SAP, Elan, Puma, Iberdrola, Storebrand, Volvo, Volkswagen

European Market Summary

Draghi is due to update German lawmakers in Berlin on the ongoing eurozone issues

Greece stays high on the agenda as the coalition fails to get full backing on planned austerity measures as two junior parties in the coalition opposed the planned labour reforms

The French government is reportedly close to finalising a deal to support Peugeot by providing up to €7bn of guarantees

Brussels has now scrapped plans to introduce a law that would have forced all publicly traded companies to have at least 40% women on their boards

SAP announces Q3 software revenues of €1.03bn ahead of estimates of €980m seen

Germany is due to sell €4bn in 10 year bonds this morning

Major US Stock Movers After Hours

Netflix fell over 19% after hours as it announced that it was cutting its full year forecasts for domestic growth and saw larger losses from international expansions

RF Micro Devices gained 12% as it announced a Q3 EPS of 3c well ahead of the forecasts

Facebook also gained over 10% after hours as it manages to shake off some of the post IPO gloom by reporting better than expected numbers, buoyed by mobile revenues

Zynga detailed that it is to cut 5% of its workforce and close down support on 13 of its older game titles and gained 3% after hours

US Market News

The quite rapid sell-off yesterday is being labelled as some profit taking following the start of the US corporate reporting season, which so far has under-whelmed, on some wider market nervousness ahead of the Fed rate decision due this evening

Apple launched its Mini iPad yesterday with analysts concerned that the pricing leaves it vulnerable to the rival offerings

Ex Goldman director Gupta is due to hear his sentence on the insider trading case today

Bloomberg’s Chart of the Day highlights how personal sales of 3D printers have grown 35,000% since 2007, as the hi tech gear now costs less than $5,000

Overnight Market News

LG Electronics the second largest mobile phone maker in South Korea announces a return to profit in Q3, buoyed by higher local demand

The founder of Billabong has survived a move to drop him from the board after he rejected a takeover bid from TPG Capital at $4/share, Billabong traded in Sydney at 84.5 cents overnight

Huawei has offered Australian authorities access to its code and equipment and states that concerns over possible security threats were distorted

Major Global IPOs Due Today

Blackrock North American, 100m Shares, GBP £1.00

Wolfpack Gold Corp, 16.67m CAD0.6

FX Summary

The Bank of China suggests that the surging dollar in Singapore could prevent the state from becoming an alternative to Hong Kong for yuan deposits

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority sold its own currency for the second time this week as it looks to halt the appreciation to the upper limit of its 29 year peg to the US dollar

Commodity Summary

Gold stayed strong yesterday amid the wider market nervousness and on renewed safe haven buying ahead of the Fed rate announcement this evening

Economic Data Due

09:00 Germany October IFO Business Climate, 101.6 exp. 101.4 prev.

15:00 US September New Home Sales, 385k exp. 373k previous

19:15 US FOMC Rate Decision, 0.25% unchanged expected