News

Footsie has held on to this morning's gains as miners issues recover from their recent depressed levels while banks have been boosted by bid interest in Bank of Ireland.

Antofagasta, Vedanta Resources, Lonmin, BHP Billiton and Anglo American are posting double-digit gains.

Oil stocks Shell and BP are also up as crude prices start to move back above $50 a barrel in electronic trading.

Oil prices though are still well below the highs reached during the summer, which is helping airlines such as British Airways.

Water group Severn Trent is down again after yesterday's downgrade by Merrill Lynch. But defensive stocks are generally under pressure with fellow utility issues National Grid and Centrica both lower. Pharmaceuticals AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline are also weak.

Royal Bank of Scotland is a top performer after shareholders overwhelmingly approved taking the £20bn on offer from the government at yesterday's meeting. HBOS and HSBC are also up.

Banks have also been boosted by an approach to Bank of Ireland. JC Flowers is the name being mentioned as part of a consortium looking to buy a stake into the Irish bank.

Chemring Group said its Australian subsidiary has been awarded a contract worth A$160mm (£68m) for the supply of countermeasures and pyrotechnics to Australia.

Elsewhere, metal processor Bodycote is to return 40p cash to its shareholders. Irish drug supplier United Drug reported a 13% jump in full year pre-tax profit but said it is facing a more difficult economic environment.

Theme park queue systems specialist Lo-Q has upped its forecast for profits this year thanks to a boost from the strength of the US dollar. Lo-Q, which supplies systems to theme park operator Six Flags in the US now expects results for 2008 "will be significantly ahead of market expectations, with profit before tax expected to be no less than £1.85m".

London based brewer and pubs group Fuller Smith and Turner has nudged the interim dividend up despite a small dip in pre-tax profits. Profit before tax excluding exceptional items eased to £12m in the 26 weeks to 27 September from £12.1m in the corresponding period of last year.

West Coast Capital, the vehicle of Scottish entrepreneur Tom Hunter, has dropped its plans to bid for Flying Brands, the Jersey-based home shopping group. Flying Brands said.

Power supplier to the electronics industry XP Power said trading since the half year has been satisfactory and it expects to meet market forecasts for the year ending 31 December. "Despite the economic outlook, I am happy to be able to announce that we remain on track for the full year," said chief executive Duncan Penny.

IT services group Business Systems lifted interim profits by 74% to £808,000 adding contractual revenues continue to increase.

Worsted fabric and garment producer Natsun said it is likely to be no better than breakeven for the full year and does not expect any significant recovery in its financial performance during 2009.