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

UK Corporate Announcements

Marks & Spencer announces H1 underlying operating profit £354.9m on sales of £4.7bn, largely in line, despite stating the recent trading has been volatile

Associated British Foods reports a full year pre-tax profit of £761m and an operating profit of £873m up 4% and states that it sees some progress this full year, weighed to H1

Intercontinental Hotels states that its share buyback will begin in Q4, as it announces a Q3 pre-tax profit of $150m from $194m and a Q3 EPS of 58.8c under the forecasts of around 60.5c seen

Hilton Food announces that its trading since July has been in line, and that its financial position remains strong

EasyJet details a 12 month load factor of 88.6% from 87.3% and passenger traffic up to 5.25m up 6.2%

DS Smith states that its packaging business is performing in line and maintains its outlook

Babcock International reports H1 underlying 6 month revenues of £1.56bn and stays confident of strong earnings progress from last year

Morgan Sindall announces that its sees its full year coming in slightly under the forecasts and that its CEO has resigned and that economic conditions remain difficult

G4S reports nine month revenues gained 6.3% and details restructuring to cuts costs and improve on its margins, and states that it is on track to meet its full year cash conversion target, and details its loss on London 2012 would be ‘in the region of’ £50m

UK Market News

The FT highlights how the US election naturally stays high on the agenda, and also on fears that the closely fought election could be resolved in the courts

The FT also writes that HSBC is expected to make a settlement with US regulators that could top $2bn over the allegations of money laundering, while its chief stated yesterday that banks have ‘lost the right to self-determination’

The UK business press writes on how Nicholas Levene was sentenced to 13 years yesterday over his £32m ponzi scheme

Petrofac announces a strategic alliance with Bowleven

Premier Oil announces it is to plug and abandon its Spaniards East well as a dry hole

Metric Property Investment announces that it is in possible merger talks with London & Stamford

Imagination Technologies announces that it has acquired assets of MIPS Technologies for $60m

The UK sells £3.25bn in 2022 bonds

UK Analyst Upgrades

Invensys Rated New Buy at Nomura; PT 330p

Smiths Group Rated New Neutral At Nomura; Pt 1,150P

UK Analyst Cuts

Chemring Cut To Neutral Vs Buy At Ubs

Standard Chartered Cut To Underperform At Credit Suisse

Standard Chartered Cut From Neutral At Credit Suisse

UK Insider Buying

Cls Holdings Plc, (CLI), 1 insider(s) bought 1,272 shares, £7.01

Hydrodec Group Plc, (HYR), 1 insider(s) bought 790,000 shares, £0.13

Mission Marketing Grou, (TMMG), 1 insider(s) bought 17,263 shares, £0.29

New World Oil And Gas P, (NEW), 2 insider(s) bought 93,257 shares, £0.1

Purecircle Ltd, (PURE), 1 insider(s) bought 12,000 shares, £2.4

Telecity Group Plc, (TCY), 1 insider(s) bought 2,000 shares, £8.44

Ubm Plc, (UBM), 1 insider(s) bought 375,000 shares, £7.01

Whitbread Plc, (WTB), 1 insider(s) bought 800 shares, £24.13

UK Insider Selling

Bunzl Plc, (BNZL), 1 insider(s) sold 5924 shares, £10.51

Rugby Estates Plc, (RES),  insider(s) sold 456 shares, £3.3

Major European Companies Reporting

Adecco SA, Q3, 0.713,  Andritz AG, Q3, 0.573,  Associated British Foods PLC, R, 0.859,  Babcock International Group PLC, S1, 0.329,  Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Q3, 1.693,  Coloplast A/S, R, 53.568,  DCC PLC, S1, 0.53,  EDP – Energias de Portugal SA, Q3, 0.072,  Fraport AG Frankfurt Airport Services Worldwide, Q3, 1.25,  Gas Natural SDG SA, Q3, 0.39,  Hannover Rueckversicherung AG, Q3, 1.787,  InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, Q3, 0.362,  Koninklijke DSM NV, Q3, 0.634,  Lanxess AG, Q3, 1.368,  Marks & Spencer Group PLC, S1, 0.137

European Market Summary

Enel, the largest utility in Italy has had its ratings cut by Moody’s to Baa2

Anglo Irish has reportedly formed a partnership with a company run by three Russian oligarchs to help it recover €500m in assets which Sean Quinn has allegedly put beyond the reach of the state owned lender

S&P details that it has placed Slovenia on negative credit watch

Greece sells €1bn in Bills at 11:00 and the EFSF sells up to €2bn in bills

Major US Stock Movers After Hours

Carbonite gained 19% as J2 Global stated that it still is seeking a deal, after its initial acquisition offer was rejected back in August

Enernoc was the leading mover on results, as it gained 19% as the energy management applications and services group announced Q3 numbers and lifts its full year 2012 and 2013 targets

Weight Watchers gained 9% as it announces Q1 EPS of $1.20 well ahead of the estimates of around $1.07 seen

Ziller the real estate information website operator announced Q4 revenues under the forecasts and the stock came off over 20% in late trading

S&P 500 Companies Reporting

Cablevision Systems Corp, Q3, 0.157,  Computer Sciences Corp, Q2, 0.473,  CVS Caremark Corp, Q3, 0.838,  Denbury Resources Inc, Q3, 0.325,  DIRECTV, Q3, 0.924,  Discovery Communications Inc, Q3, 0.63,  Emerson Electric Co, Q4, 1.053,  Expeditors International of Washington Inc, Q3, 0.434,  Fossil Inc, Q3, 1.161,  Frontier Communications Corp, Q3, 0.071,  Health Care REIT Inc, Q3, 0.892,  International Flavors & Fragrances Inc, Q3, 1.07,  Marathon Oil Corp, Q3, 0.634,  Marsh & McLennan Cos Inc, Q3, 0.378,  News Corp, Q1, 0.377,  NYSE Euronext, Q3, 0.407,  Pepco Holdings Inc, Q3, 0.423,  SCANA Corp, Q3, 0.886,  Sempra Energy, Q3, 1.001

US Market News

Abbott announces that it has sold $14.7bn in bonds, in the largest sale since 2009 as it prepares to split is business into two units, as firms have increasingly taken advantage of the record low borrowing costs in recent days

US press reports that Apple is looking at alternatives to Intel chips for its Mac computers, Intel came off around 1% after hours on the reports

Apple is also in the news on reports that a ‘rogue trader’ in the US working for Rochdale Securities took an estimated $1bn gamble on the stock, which has left Rochdale fighting for survival

Nike stays in the news on talk that it is close to selling its Cole Haan unit to Apax for $500m

THQ the loss making video game maker has announced that it has hired an investment bank to assist on evaluating its options

The VIX has gained 3 points in recent days and is up to 18 with some analysts suggesting that volatility around the election could move the S&P 500 by as much as 30-40 points, with the general consensus seeming to be that a surprise Romney win would see a positive short term move in the market

Overnight Market News

The RBA left interest rates unchanged overnight, as expected, stating that the information on the world economy was slightly more positive

Suzuki motors details that it is exiting the US car market after thirty years as it failed to attract the market in the same way as Toyota and Honda, it will however continue to sell its motorcycles and ATVs

ING details that it will pay $8.8m to Taiwan’s labour and pension funds in order to compensate for losses in the funds relating to irregular trading activities at its fund management arm

The US – China Economic and Security Review Commission states that China is the ‘most threatening actor in cyberspace’

Major Global IPOs Due Today

Quindell Portfolio PLC, (QPP), 203.846m, GBp 13

FX Summary

The G20 meeting is playing second fiddle to the US election, but it has stated that the finance chiefs have pledged to move towards more flexible currency regimes

The Aussie dollar moved up to five week highs on the RBA news, as some had been expecting a rate cut

Commodity Summary

Bloomberg details how China has been buying up land in remote wooded areas of mainland Japan largely due to the rights this gives to access to groundwater, as analysts sees the natural resource becoming strained in mainland china over the next 30-50 years. Currently Japan is the only country in the region that does not regulate property investments from foreigners

Economic Data Due

00:01 UK October BRC LFL Sales, 1.5% previous

09:00 Eurozone October PMI Services, 46.2 exp. 46.2 previous

09:30 UK September Industrial Production, m/m, -0.4% exp. -0.5% previous

09:30 UK September Manufacturing Production m/m, 0.1% exp. -1.1% previous

10:00 Eurozone September PPI m/m, 0.2% exp. 0.9% previous