News

Weak retailers and further losses among leading housebuilders have overshadowed big gains in the banking sector following decent results from Lloyds TSB.

Lloyds TSB is top of the risers after the UK's fifth largest bank said underlying profit before tax rose to £3.92bn for the 12 months to 31 December, up from £3.71bn a year earlier.

Analysts also said an increase in write-downs to £280m from the £200m flagged last December was still pretty modest. The full year dividend goes up 5%.

Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC rose in sympathy, while even the sector's favourite whipping boy, Alliance & Leicester, has made headway.

Accounting software firm Sage is in the red though after disappointing results yesterday from Intuit, the US company that leads the tax-returns software sector.

Taylor Wimpey and Persimmon also turned south as investors continued to worry about Thursday's cautious statement from Galliford Try. Second-liner Bovis Homes is also friendless.

Retailers were unloved after Landsbanki cut Marks and Spencer to 'reduce' from 'hold' and Next to 'hold' from 'buy', saying it thinks the current slowdown has further to run. Debenhams drops to 'reduce' from 'hold'.

JP Morgan has cut its price target on B&Q owner Kingfisher to 128p from 135p, saying its fourth quarter sales fell short of expectations. It keeps its 'underweight' rating.

Meanwhile, pub owner Enterprise Inns slumped after Goldman Sachs cut its rating on the stock from "neutral" to "sell". There is nothing wrong with the Chinese walls at Goldman's however, as its investment arm ignored the advice of its research analysts and increased its stake in Enterprise to about 14.04%, up from 13.35%.

Fellow pub-owner JD Wetherspoon also got the thumbs down from Goldman's analysts, as it was added to the investment bank's "conviction sell" list.

Elsewhere, drug major AstraZeneca said it will appeal against a court verdict in Alabama that ruled it pay $215m damages related to drug pricing under the Medicaid programme.

Shares in betting shop chain group Ladbrokes have been going well this month, helped by reports that Bahamas-based billionaire Joe Lewis is building a stake, but they turned lower today after Citigroup said the shares are now a sell, having previously rated them a hold. The downgrade follows yesterday's price target cut by Investec from 303p to 260p.

Citigroup is not wild about fund managers, either, and has cut its price target for New Star Asset Management by more than a third to 86p, and chopped its price valuation for Schroders by more than a quarter to 890p for the voting shares. Henderson Group suffers in sympathy.

Precision instrumentation firm Spectris carves out gains after it said full year pre-tax profits jumped 38%, adding that the current year has started well.

Foseco, which is expected to be taken over by fellow engineer Cookson, said early indications for 2008 are positive with constant currency sales for January 12% ahead of last year. Full year turnover rose by 6%, or 8% on a constant currency basis, to £431m.

Aircraft services group BBA Aviation has agreed to acquire the assets of Hawker Beechcraft's line service operations for $128.5m in cash.

Financial software group Gresham Computing rose today on news of a "substantial" contract win for a treasury management solution with a major customer in Australia.

Fuel Cell systems group Voller Energy powered higher Friday after it asked Deloitte Corporate Finance to conduct a strategic review that might result in an offer being made for the company.

Virtual telecom networks operator Vanco expects trading results for the year to 31 January 2008 to be in line with market expectations, prior to its recent accounting and balance sheet reviews.

Shares in Humberts plummeted as the estate agent swung into a full year pre-tax loss after making a goodwill impairment write-down of £18.4m and scrapped its final dividend.

European Islamic Investment Bank (EIIB) said results for the year were not in line with expectations as the wholesale bank slipped into losses after it withdrew a poorly received fund.

Document management software provider Invu said Friday it expects results for the year to 31 January 2008 to be in line with market expectations.

Allied Irish Bank will acquire a 49.99% stake in specialist lender Bulgarian-American Credit Bank (BACB) for €216m in cash.

Trading in the second half to date has been better than expected at James Latham, leaving the timber supplier confident that results for the year to 31 March 2008 will be significantly ahead of market expectations.

Property developer Oak Holdings is buoyant after it won approval from Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council for a 250-year lease on the £350m YES! project, Europe's largest covered leisure based development.