Morning Market, Friday 30th May 2008

The FTSE was diown about 10 points this morning at 6,058, whilst the FTSE 250 was down 7 points at 10,091. Lower crude and commodity prices hindered the energy and mining companies.

Over the pond, last nigh the DJI closed up over 52 points at 12,646.22, which was down about 80 points from its high of the day.  The S&P500 closed up nearly 7.5 points at 1,398.26, and the Nasdaq up over 21.5 points at 2,508.32.  With the dollar gaining some strength the price of the black stuff had fallen about US$4 bbl yesterday, down to around US$126 bbl. The US givernment had helped the situationafter reporting that the US economy grew last quarter more than had been estimated.

In the Far East today, Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed up over 214 points at 14,338.54, whilst in Hong Kong the Hang Seng was up abgout 136 points at 24,520 by its lunchtime chow time.

Back here in London this morning, as mentioned at the top it was the energy & miners that were under pressure. BP was off 6p at 606.5p, and BG Group was down 37p at 1,257, whilst the miners reacted to lowr metal prices, with BHP down 60p at 19-quid, Vedanta Resources down 50p at 2,481, and Xstrata off 110p at 3,930.

Mind you, this fall in the oil price did help the airlines. British Airways had a decent start and was up 14p at 229p, whilst easyJet was up 20p at 315p.

On to financials, where the banks were also doing ok. RBS, after closing at an all-time low yesterday, was up 4p at 236p despite concerns over its £12 bln rights issue, Lloyds TSB was up 7p at 384p, and Alliance & Leicester was up 9p at 429p.

Johnson Matthey was given a decent write-up by Merrills, and promptly rose 37p to 1,972 as it joined Merrills favourite Europe 1 list.

Staying with financials, the insurers also did well, with Friends Provident up 4p at 121p, Standard Life up 8p at 250.5p, and Admiral Group up 20p at 888p.

DSG International was up 3p at 60p after a Morgan Stanley upgrade to ‘overweight’ from ‘equal-weight’, adding a 90p target, up from 57p, as it felt the Currys & PC World owner was getting its house together after the recent announcment on branch closures etc.

On to building, where Taylor Wimpey rose 4p to 89.5p after a Goldman sachs upgrade to ‘neutral’ from ’sell’, basically saying that this one had really hit the floor and was now looking like value, with all the bad news built in to the price.