Market news round up, upgrades & downgrades

UK Corporate Announcements

Aviva announces an H1 operating profit of £935m down 10% and an H1 net loss of £681m from £465m and states it remains committed to reducing costs by £400m

Randgold Resources details Q2 sales of $345m from 4321m and a Q2 profit of $117.5m from $113.3m and states it is not affected by the political issues in Mali and that it is reviewing opportunities in the junior gold sector

AMEC reports H1 revenues of £2.03bn from 37% and sees H2 revenues remaining broadly flat, and that it has an excellent start to the year

TUI Travel reports Q3 sales of £3.69bn down 2% and an underlying pre-tax profit of £74m down 16% and is confident of exceeding the full year forecasts, ex currency moves

Savills announces H1 underlying pre-tax profit of £19.7m down 4%, with revenues up 5%

Psion announces 6m revenues of £80.2m and an adjusted EBITDA of 2.3m from 2.1m

HMV states that its financial position is now stable and reports a full group loss of £80m from £122m with LFL sales down 12%

French Connection states that trading has been broadly in line

UK Market News

The chief of BUPA is in the news as he criticises private equity groups for attempting to wring money out of the health system

The Independent writes on how the Serious Fraud Office is taking a look at the bailout of Barclays by Middle Eastern investors

The FT writes that Standard Chartered has taken legal advice on whether it can launch a countersuit on US regulators after criticisms over how it has handled the investigations, and as the bank states that there was no grounds to revoke its US banking license

Manchester United is due to hold its IPO in the US today

BSkyB has won an appeal at the Competition Appeal Tribunal against the previous regulators decision to force it to offer its sports content to its rivals for a lower fee

The FT writes on how Stephenson Clarke Shipping has sold its last vessel and has now gone out of business, a victim of the global slowdown, having been founded in 1730 it had been Britain’s oldest shipping company

The UK is to sell £1.5bn of 2014 bonds toda

UK Analyst Upgrades

Jardine Lloyd Thompson Raised To Neutral Vs Sell At Citi

Rotork Rated New Overweight at JPMorgan, PT 2450p

UK Analyst Cuts

Anglo American Pt Cut To 2,200P Vs 2,500P At Nomura

Lonmin Rated New Reduce At Nomura

Premier Oil Cut To Hold From Buy At Numis

UK Insider Buying

None Detailed

UK Insider Selling

Burberry Group Plc, (BRBY), 1 insider(s) sold 20,000 shares, £13.27

Halma Plc, (HLMA), 11 insider(s) sold 590,067 shares, £4.07

Qinetiq Group Plc, (QQ/), 1 insider(s) sold 11,870 shares, £1.67

Major European Companies Reporting

Adecco SA, Q2, 0.605,  Aegon NV, Q2, 0,  AMEC PLC, S1, 0.358,  Aviva PLC, S1, 0.254,  Bilfinger Berger SE, Q2, 1.19,  Commerzbank AG, Q2, 0.063,  Deutsche Telekom AG, Q2, 0.152,  GN Store Nord A/S, Q2, 0.558,  Hexagon AB, Q2, 0.268,  Kerry Group PLC, S1, 0.91,  Nestle SA, S1, 1.576,  Novo Nordisk A/S, Q2, 8.555,  Randgold Resources Ltd, S1, 1.87,  Rhoen Klinikum AG, Q2, 0.128,  SGL Carbon SE, Q2, 0.205,  Subsea 7 SA, Q2, 0.332,  Swiss Re AG, Q2, 0.024,  Symrise AG, Q2, 0.337,  TUI Travel PLC, Q3,

European Market Summary

Credit Agricole has received bids for its loss making Greek unit, Emporiki Bank, as it continues with its moves to exit the country

Reuters suggests that State Street held merger talks with UBS back in June

S&P 500 Companies Reporting

CareFusion Corp, Q4, 0.503,  DeVry Inc, Q4, 0.438,  Kohl’s Corp, Q2, 0.958,  Nordstrom Inc, Q2, 0.731,  NVIDIA Corp, Q2, 0.224,  Windstream Corp, Q2, 0.122

S&P 500 Ex Dividends (gross):- Norfolk Southern Corp, NSC, (.50),  Rockwell Collins Inc, COL, (.30),  Red Hat Inc, RHT, (2012/08/09),  DR Horton Inc, DHI, (.0375),  Tong Lung Metal Industries, 8705, (100.00),  Ralph Lauren Corp, RL, (2012/08/09),  Rockwell Automation Inc, ROK, (.47),  Exxon Mobil Corp, XOM, (.57),  Apple Inc, AAPL, (2.65),  WW Grainger Inc, GWW, (.80),  KLA-Tencor Corp, KLAC, (.40)

Major US Stock Movers After Hours

News Corp traded over 3% lower as it announces details of the write-down on its publishing business, with a net loss of $0.64 from the profit of $0.26 last year

Dillard gained 6% after hours as it announced a Q2 EPS of $0.63, well ahead of the estimates of $0.48 seen

Zynga fell 2% as it announced that its COO has reigned

Boingo, the Internet services group, came off over 13% as it announces disappointing Q2 numbers and also cuts its full year outlook

Monster Beverage fell 10% as it also announces Q2 EPS and revenue numbers under the forecasts

US Market News

Amgen announces that it has ended the late study of its proposed Ganitumab Pancreatic cancer drug stating it was unlikely to help patients

RealtyTrac states that US foreclosures fell 10% in July from last year as new legislation slows the process for the seizing of homes in some US states

US data has July as the hottest month on record, with data going back 117 years, for the 48 lower states

Bloomberg highlights how the price of Yahoo puts have moved up to four year highs, after investor concerns on whether Marissa Mayer can reverse the group’s slump in form

Overnight Market News

Australia’s largest phone company Telstra announced H2 net income of A$1.9bn just under the consensus, citing costs on growing its mobile phone customers

The South China Post states that China’s first aircraft carrier could be operational by National Day, October 1

China’s consumer prices gained at a slower rate in July, to 1.8%, and down to its lowest level for 30 months, helping Asian stock markets to largely post gains overnight

The South Korean market regulator states that it is to investigate the local units of both HSBC and Standard Chartered

Major Global IPOs Due Today

CKE Inc, (CK), 13.333m, USD 14 – 16

Kumai Energy Ltd, (KMI), 35m, AUD 0.2

Manchester United Ltd, (MANU), 16.67m, USD 16 – 20

Performant Financial Corp, (PFMT), 11.54m, USD 12 – 14

FX Summary

The yen has stayed largely unchanged after the Bank of Japan held back from adding to stimulus measures at its meeting overnight

The pound rallied a little yesterday afternoon as the comments from Mervyn King were seen to reduce the expectations of additional rate cuts in the medium term

The Colombian central bank has stated that it would like the peso to be devalued more

Employees at Brazil’s central bank are on strike, as they argue for a 23% increase in pay

Commodity Summary

Corn prices have again moved back towards the recent record highs, ahead of a crop update from US authorities tomorrow, with the likes of UBS stating that it remains overweight in soybeans, corn and wheat

Economic Data Due

09:30 UK June Visible Trade Balance, -£8577bn exp. £8363bn previous

13:30 US June Trade Balance -$47.3bn exp. $48.7bn previous

13:30 US Initial Jobless Claims, 370k exp 365k previous

15:00 US June Wholesale Inventories, 0.3% exp. 0.3% previous

Economic Events

None Scheduled