Morning Market, Wednesday 28th May 2008

The FTSE was up this morning, trading at about 6,070, up over 11 points. The FTSE 250 was actually down about 20 points at 10,015.

Over the pond the DJIA closed up 68.72 points at 12,548.35, whilst the S&P500 closed up 9.42 points at 1,385.35, and the Nasdaq up 36.57 points at 2,481.24. Figures show the US economy is slowing.

In the Far East today the Nikkei 225 closed down 177.42 points at 13,715.89, whilst in Hong Kong the Hang Seng was down about 79 points at 24,203 by lunchtime chow time.  It seem the priuce of the black stuff falling has triggered a bit of a sell off over there.

In Far East trading there was some profit taking on oil, with concerns on demand from the US falling as the economy slows. Oil was trading sub-$130 again, with light sweet crude (July del) at US$128.80 bbl, and Brent North Sea crude (Jul del) at US$128.20 bbl.

Back here in London, it was the Royal Bank of Scotland that was a little suprise after a Credit Suisse upgrade to ‘neutral’ from ‘underperform’ saw the price rise 5p to 246p. Credit Suisse continued with thier sector review by giving peer Lloyds TSB a downgrade to ‘underperform’ from ‘neutral’, causing a 4p drop to 389.5p.

On to insurance, where Friends Provident was up 2p at 118p after a JP Morgan upgrade to ‘overweight’ from ‘neutral’. Peer Prudential liked the news and was up 8p at 652p.

On to the supermarkets, where Morrisons was up 6p at 291p after a Credit Suissse upgrade to ‘outperform’ from ‘neutral’, adding a new target of 340p up 20p from its last target.  Peer Sainsburys followed the trend, up 7p at 292p.

Some of the FTSE 100 went ex-div today, causing the yield to be taken out of the prices.  Those going ex-div included British Energy, Marks & Sparks, and Cobham.

British Energy was actually down 10p at 727p, but this was also due to reporting a drop in earnings from £1.2 bln down to £882m this year, blaming lower full year nuclear output and prices charged.

With the oil price down, the oil heavyweights backed off too. BG Group was down 7p at 1,283, RD Shell down 8p 2,144, Tullow Oil down 4p at 906p, and Cairn Energy down a penny at 3,370.

Commodity prices were also down, affecting the miners. BHP was down 15p at 1,957, ENRC down 25p at 1,385p, Vedanta Resources down 21p at 2,577, and Kazakhmys down 8p at 1,670.