Market news round up, upgrades & downgrades

UK Corporate Announcements

Stanley Gibbons announces an H1 pre-tax profit of £1.8m on sales of £14.7m

SVG announces an H1 NAV of £3.785 up 12.3% and states that Hugo Boss and Valentino were the largest contributors to the increase

Lonrho states that it remains in a solid position to continue to deliver on core operations

UK Market News

Manchester United has set its US IPO price at $14/share, in an IPO which at any other time of the year would be dominating the sports headlines, the indicative range had been $16-20

Barclay’s appointment of former deputy governor of the bank of England Sir David Walker as its new chairman is naturally covered by the business press today, with the general consensus being the appointment will help the bank rebuild its image

The Times writers on how the Governor of the Bank of Canada has responded to talk and ruled himself out of possibly replacing Mervyn King

Acadametrics details how house prices in London continues to skew the national average, as the divergence between prices in the capital and the rest of the country stays at historically high levels

Chancellor Osborne details that he has spoken to Tim Geithner three times this week to discuss how the investigations into Standard Chartered were being conducted

The OFT today publishes its provisional findings from a review of Yellow Pages undertakings and states that the undertakings may no longer be appropriate

The UK sells up to £3bn in bills today

UK Analyst Upgrades

Tui Travel Raised To Equalweight Vs Underweight: Morgan Stanley

UK Analyst Cuts

Old Mutual Cut To Hold Vs Buy At Investec

UK Insider Buying

Segro Plc, 1 insider(s) bought 4,011 shares, £2.49

UK Insider Selling

Inchcape Plc, (INCH), 1 insider(s) sold 5,003 shares, £3.87

Tesco Plc, (TSCO), 1 insider(s) sold 44,235 shares, £3.27

Major European Companies Reporting

Fugro NV, S1, 1.787,  Governor & Co of the Bank of Ireland/The, S1, 0,  Hannover Rueckversicherung AG, Q2, 1.358,  Prudential PLC, S1, 0.298,  Rheinmetall AG, Q2, 0.917,  Schibsted ASA, Q2, 2.548,  ThyssenKrupp AG, Q3, -0.067

European Market Summary

KKR has virtually doubled its direct lending to European companies as private equity fills the gaps left by the regions banks

Carlyle Group has bought TCW, the asset manager, from SocGen in a deal seen to be worth around $800m

S&P 500 Companies Reporting

Harman International Industries Inc, Q4, 0.643,  JC Penney Co Inc, Q2, -0.219

S&P 500 Ex Dividends (gross):- Aflac Inc, 8686, (.33),  Cablevision Systems Corp, CVC, (.15),  JPMorgan Chase & Co, 48125XC38, (3.570 Mln),  CA Inc, CA, (.25),  TECO Energy Inc, TE, (.22),  Seagate Technology PLC, STX, (.32),  CF Industries Holdings Inc, CF, (.40),  Wisconsin Energy Corp, WEC, (.30)

Major US Stock Movers After Hours

The major gauiner was Fusion-io, the data centre provider, which gained a solid 29% after hours as it announces Q4 numbers well ahead of the forecasts and gives an optimistic outlook

Monster Beverage fell 5.2% as it details it had been subpoenaed by the State Attorney General on July 12 in relation to an energy drink promotion

Ubiquiti fell 35% as it reported Q1 EPS well under the expectations

Nvidia gained around 5% as it sees Q3 revenues coming in ahead of the forecasts and as it details Q2 numbers ahead of the estimates

US Market News

Yahoo announces that as part of its ongoing strategic review, under its new CEO, it may change its share repurchase program and previously announced plans of returning cash to shareholders, the stock fell 3% after hours on the news

The new investors in Knight Capital are reportedly looking to regain some cash by looking to sell off its currency platform and its stake in Direct Edge Holdings

Bloomberg suggests that IBM has made an informal approach to Research in Motion over its enterprise services unit

Overnight Market News

Sentiment overnight has been affected by Chinese export data shows the rate of growth slowing a touch more than expected, and down to near zero, increasing expectations that Beijing will take more robust moves to support growth

Li & Fung the Hong Kong based clothes and toy manufacturer, the world’s largest, came off 22% after citing a slowdown in both the US and Europe

Japan’s Trend Micro has been down as much as 15% as the computer virus protection company announces H1 net income fell 15%

China Business News writes that a plan to reduce transaction fees for bank card transactions has been submitted to the State Council 

FX Summary

RBS has confirmed that a trader ‘fat-finger’ was the cause of a 0.6% move in the euro-Swiss franc earlier this week

Commodity Summary

Corn has again rallied to fresh record highs ahead of the US yield estimate report today, corn is up around 28% this year

Sugar prices however are down towards two year lows after rains in Brazil have eased, after some concerns that the weather would crimp harvests

Bloomberg highlights how the expectations for further central bank easing is having an impact on the correlation of price moves between equities and oil prices, with the current level around 66%, up from 47% in April, and back to levels seen in July 2010, as investors look to less correlated commodities to diversify out of equities, such as wheat and corn

Economic Data Due

05:30 Japan June Industrial Production, -0.1% previous

07:00 German July CPI, 0.4% exp 0.4% previous

09:30 UK July PPI Output 0.0% exp. from -0.4% previous

13:30 Canada July Unemployment rate, 7.3% exp. 7.2% previous

19:00 US Monthly Budget Statement