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

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19 October 2012

UK Corporate Announcements

Provident Financial states that it expects to report good results for the full year and is able to execute on its growth plans into 2015

Aggreko states that it is trading broadly in line with the expectations and that it delivered a robust performance in Q3

Spectris announces that it is well positioned to meet targets this year and that sales gained 12% in the quarter

William Hill details Q3 sales gained 9% and stays confident on its expectations for the full year and that the chief of its online unit has stepped down

Petrofac stays that it remains on track to meet its full year targets

Dechra announces Q1 revenues gained 21.9% and also stated that its Finance Director is to leave immediately

Bunzl announces that it expects to complete more transactions this year and that trading has been consistent with the expectations

UK Market News

Barclays detailed that it is to set aside an additional £700m for the PPI Compensation fund, on top of the $300m charge it took in Q1

Ofgem has detailed plans to deliver a ‘simpler, clearer, and fairer energy market for consumers’ with ‘a ban on more complex multi tier tariffs and scrapping of uncompetitive dead tariffs’

The Telegraph details on how despite the claims scandal in the House of Commons 27 MP’s still claim for allowances while letting out properties of their own

The business press today reports of possible M&A talk around GKN

BP responds to concerns that its Maconda well in the Gulf of Mexico was leaking and states that oil found in the region was instead from equipment left on the sea floor two years ago, which was meant to allay concerns on its environmental practises but may just increase them

Also it stays in focus as its board meets today to decide the future of its TNK BP stake

The Independent suggests that UK MP’s could make some critical statements of the City of London watchdogs today, and could even crimp Lord Turner’s bid to become the next governor of the bank of England

Nick Griffin the BNP leader has been banned from Twitter after he posted the home address of a gay couple in the news yesterday, stating that a ‘British Justice Team’ was coming to get them, they hit the news after winning damages in a court case against a B&B operator that refused the couple a room

The UK is scheduled to sell £2.5bn in bills at 11:10

UK Analyst Upgrades

Bovis Homes Reinstated Buy at BofAML

Barratt Developments Reinstated Buy at BofAML

Taylor Wimpey Reinstated Buy at BofAML

Keller Rated New Buy At Jefferies, Pt 651P

UK Analyst Cuts

Bellway Reinstated Neutral at BofAML, PT 1,018p

Berkeley Reinstated Neutral at BofAML

Standard Life Cut To Sell From Hold At Berenberg

Morrison Cut To Underweight From Equalweight At Barclays

UK Insider Buying

Raven Russia Ltd, (RUS), 1 insider(s) bought 2305 shares, £0.68

Major European Companies Reporting

Elisa OYJ, Q3, 0.366,  Fortum OYJ, Q3, 0.163,  Investment AB Kinnevik, Q3, 0,  Yara International ASA, Q3, 8.523

European Market Summary

Euro Leaders conclude the latest two day summit today and they remained committed to establishing a euro area bank supervisor by the year end, but Merkel states that any role would need time to prove itself before recapitalisations of banks could be considered

Moody’s states that it keeps its negative outlook on the German banking system

The French Industry minister launches a campaign today to urge French citizens to buy local products in a ‘Made in France’ campaign

Arcelor Mittall is reportedly looking at selling a minority stake in its Canadian iron assets worth around $8bn

S&P 500 Companies Reporting

Air Products & Chemicals Inc, Q4, 1.438,  Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc, Q3, 0.474,  Baker Hughes Inc, Q3, 0.837,  Cooper Industries PLC, Q3, 1.133,  Edwards Lifesciences Corp, Q3, 0.568,  First Horizon National Corp, Q3, 0.187,  General Electric Co, Q3, 0.363,  Honeywell International Inc, Q3, 1.137,  Ingersoll-Rand PLC, Q3, 0.986,  Kinder Morgan Inc/Delaware, Q3, 0.291,  McDonald’s Corp, Q3, 1.475,  Parker Hannifin Corp, Q1, 1.715,  Schlumberger Ltd, Q3, 1.064,  Wynn Resorts Ltd, Q3, 1.335

S&P 500 Ex Dividends (gross):- Colgate-Palmolive Co, CL, (.62)

Major US Stock Movers After Hours

Riverbed gained 11% after hours as it announced Q4 revenues of $230m

Marvell Technology came off 10% as it announces that its CFO has resigned and as it lowers its Q3 outlook

Microsoft fell around 1% after hours when it detailed a Q1 EPS of 53c, just under the consensus as consumers are seen holding purchases until Windows 8

AMD announced it was to cut a further 15% of its staff as falling demand was impacting on sales

US Market News

Google stays in the focus as its results came out early yesterday, with Google blaming RR Donnelley for the early release, the results were worse than expected but the unexpectedly early release and the miss caused some hectic trading in yesterday’s session, causing trading to even be suspended for two hours, with the CEO apologising for the error, the stock dropped around $60 in around 15 minutes, and closed at the end of the day at $695/share

Amongst its results yesterday Coca-Cola announced plans to buy back up to $18.9bn of its own shares

Aleksander Efrosman has pled guilty in New York to currency fraud and scheming to cheat investors of his fund out of $5m, including $3m he spent at a Casino

Newsweek signals a sign of the times in that it confirms it is to end a print edition of its magazine after a run of 79 years, and instead focus on the online versions

Morgan Stanley details that it has amended its Value at Risk calculations, in a move which will boost its capital, the move has been achieved by amending the model to only contain one year of previous data, as opposed to four years in the previous model, increasing concerns that the calculations will be less accurate in periods of unusual volatility

Overnight Market News

The chief of Softbank has not ruled out a possible move for MetroPCS

Australian regulators are investigating how its benchmark index saw some rapid intraday gains on some stocks on the open yesterday, matching recent intraday volatility seen in the likes of the Nifty Fifty, lifting concerns that automatic trading systems remain vulnerable

FX Summary

Chile overnight left its key interest rate unchanged at 5%

Commodity Summary

Gold is heading for its second weekly decline, as the sentiment on the global economic recovery has been supported by economic data in recent days

Oil prices are in the news, due to their lack of movement, as Bloomberg details how oil futures have extended the longest run in more than a decade of daily price moves of less than 25 cents. With contrarians keen for the eventual return of volatility

China has lost its World Trade Organisation appeal that Chinese tariff’s on certain US steel products were illegal

Economic Data Due

09:30 UK September PSNCR, 13.4bn – 14.4bn previous

15:00 US September Existing Home Sales, 4.7m exp. 4.82m previous