Market Wrap, Monday 28th April 2008

Despite being up as much as 43 points during the session, the FTSE ended the day down a point at 6,090.4, whilst the FTSE 250 closed up 98.5 points at 10,117.5.  It seems everyone is waiting for the interest rate news from the US on Wednesday.

By the time London closed the DJI was down about 8.5 points at 12,883, whilst the S&P500 was about even at 1,398, and the Nasdaq up 1.5 points at 2,424.5.  All fairly flat.

With the price of the blackstuff so strong again, oil exploration stocks did well. Cairn Nergy closed up 93p at 2,999 on the back of a broker upgrade to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’ on news from its Indian project at Rajasthan. Tullow Oil closed up another 7.5p at 764.5p, a new high.  The two main heavyweights did ok, with RD shell down 4p at 1,941 after being higher during the day, and BOP closed up 1.5p at 578.5p.  Shell and BP report 1st quarter results tomorrow. Brent crude (Jun del) hit US$117 bbl during the day.

The miners were strong as metals prices wwere up again. Copper giant Xstrata closed up 89p at 4,094 after a Credit Suisse 50-quid target, Anto up 20p at 802p, and Kazakhmys closed up 61p at 1,725.

On from this morning, Whitbread closed up 37p at 1,227 after decent resluts which were much bettre than expectations. Merrill Lynch reiterated its ‘buy’ stance.

On to retailers, where the non-food guys made up some of the ground lost recently. Home Retail Group closed up 11p at 251.25p, Next up 28p at 1,125, Kingfisher up 2.3p at 131p, and Marks & Sparks up nearly 15p to 375.25p.

The banks did ok today as well, with the planned (alleged?!) HBOS £4 bln rights issuse being taken well.  HBOS closed down 1.25p at just shy of 496p, but this wasn’t really taklen as negative.  The bank may announce its plans tomorrow. RBS, who already announced the small matter of their own £12 bln rights issue, closed 5.5p higher at 354.5p, and Alliance & Leicester closed up 15.5p at 530p.

Cadbury Schweppes was in talks with Wrigleys regaring their chewing gum departmnet.  It appears there could be a deal to be done after the Cadburys de-merger of its beverage and confectionary parts of the business.

Shire Pharma closed down 37p to 903p after a Credit Suisse downgrade to ‘underperform’ from ‘neutral’, with a 823p target, down from 930p.

And also on from this morning, financial software group Sage received a Morgan Stanley downgrade to ‘underweight’ from ‘overweight’ and a reduction in target from 255p to 185p, causing the price to close down nearly 4p at 201.25p.

After the Office of fair Trading alleged that tobacco firms were all in cahoots, the related shares were down. Imperial Tobacco closed down 7p at 2,543, and BAT was down 11p to 1,960. The major supermarkets were also affected, as they retail the said smokes too. Tesco closed down 6.5p to 420, Morrisons down 8.25p to just shy of 290p, and Sainsburys closed down nearly 9p at 384.

New FTSE 100 joiner Wood Group, the oil services company, closed down 19.5p at 434p after profit taking now that it’s finally in the top flight.  A decent run up to the joining of the index is usual.

Still having a good few days was Stagecoach Group, who climbed another 27.5p to close at just shy of 249p, up 12.5% on the day after announcing a decent update on business so far this year, which was far better than expected. Credit Suisse reiterated its ‘outperform’ stance and 275p target.