Morning Market, Tuesday 27th May 2008

The FTSE was up about 21 points in it sfirst hour at 6,181, whilst the FTSE 250 was down about 10 points at 10,067.

Over the pond they were closed yesterday, as we were here in the UK, but on Friday the close there was negative.  At Friday’s close the DJI was down almost 146 points at 12,479.63, whilst the S&P500 was down nearly 18.5 points at 1,375.93, and the Nasdaq down almost 20 points at 2,444.67.

In the Far East today it was far mre positive, with the Nikkei 225 closing up over 203 points at 13,893.31, whilst in Hong Kong the Hang Seng was up nearly 150 points by its lunchtime chow.

The price of the black stuff has backed off as well, although still around the US$133 bbl mark. With more problems in Nigeria, there were stil, concerns on supply. Both Light Sweet & Brent were just about US$133 bbl for July deleivery, with Brent being 15cents cheaper.

Back here in London the oil price helped the oil stocks. Tullow Oil was up 14p at 935p, BG Group up 15p to 1,325p, and Cairn Energy up 70p at 3,513p.

The miners bounced this mirning after their poor end to the week last week, with the majors all up.  Vedanta Resources was up 65p at 2,642, Anglo up 82p at 3,454, Anto up 71p at 711p, and Rio up 107p at 6,406.

M&A rumours in the press at the weekend has SABMiller at the top of the board this morning, up 62p at 1,286, after reports that Inbev sniffing with intent on trying to put together the majors in the market. The reports said they were also looking at Anheuser-Busch as well as SABMiller as targets. ING upped its target to 1,550p from 15-quid.

Vodafone was up 3.2p at 166.5 after posting its results that were received well. Revenue was at £35.5 bln for the year end at March, which is up over 14%. Merrills reiterated their ‘buy’ stance. News that chief executive Arun Sarin will be stepping down appers to also have been received well.  He will be replaced by deputy chief executive Vittorio Colao. Peer Cable & Wireless was up 2.8p to 165.8 after a Goldman Sachs upgarde to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’.

Compass Group was up 5p to 367p, aided by Credit Suisse upping its price target to 425 pence from 415 following the group’s results earlier this month.

GlaxoSmithKline was down 10p to 504p after a Morgan Stanley downgrade to ‘underweight’ from ‘equal-weight’, citing risk to expectations for US Cervarix approval next year.

On to retailers, where bad weather over the bank holiday added to woes. Home Retail Group was down 6p to 225p, Next down 15p to 1,188, Kingfisher down nearly 2p to 138.1p, and Marks and Sparks down 2.5p to 391p.

Northern Foods was up 2p at 88p after some decetn figures. Full-year pretax profit was just over £50m, which was up from £40m last time.