Morning Wrap 21/02/08

The FTSE was up about 45 points at 5,938 in its first hour, whilst the FTSE 250 was up about 60 points at 10,185. The FTSE has rebounded about 2/3rds of its fall yesterday.

Last night over the pond the markets closed up, after initially falling, with the DJI closing up 90.04 at 12,427.26, which was about a 200-point turn from its low of the day. The S&P500 closed up 11.25 at 1,360.03 and the Nasdaq up 20.90 at 2,327.10. The reassurance by the Fed Reserve that it will put growth before inflation gave investors some comfort, as it looks like interest rates could even be cut again.

In the Far East this morning the Nikkei 225 closd up 377.91 points at 13,688.28, and in Hong Kong the Hang Seng closed up 32.42 at 23,623.0, although was up higher during the session and tailed back.

Oil prices are up yet again, with Light Sweet crude up about 75c at US$100.75 bbl on NYMEX last night, whilst Brent (Apr del) was nearly 40c at US$98.8 bbl this morning.

Here in London the oil price helped BP, who were up 1.5p at 559p, and Cairn Energy up 53p at 2,707. BP received a downgrade from Citigroup as well.

With gold now up at US$945 oz and copper also up, the miners were also mostly higher. Vedanta was up 70p at 2,288, Anto up 18p at 847 and Lonmin was up 65p at 3,529.

BAE Systems was up 13p at 485p after its reported 22% rise in earnings and a 14% rise in sales, together with a bullish fiorecast for the defence and aerospace group this year. Figures were an EBITA of £1.48 bln, up from £1.20 bln last time out. sales were up to £15.7 bln, up £2 bln from last year, and the order book was up nearly £7 bln to £38.6 bln.

Reed Elsevier was up 34 at 618 after the Anglo-Dutch publisher said it plans to divest its trade magazine subsidiary and announced a US$4.1 bln acquisition of Choicepoint, the insuranec data specialist, as part of a major restructuring aimed at enhancing profit growth. Profits were up to £1.13 bln, up from £1.08 bln last year.

Centrica was up 2p at 329p on the back of its £1.95 bln profit for 2007, which was 40% up on 2006. It added that it had 200,000 customers return to British Gas in the second half of the year.

Scottish & Newcastle didn’t fair as well early door, falling 20p 787p after it was clear that South African brewer SABMiller would not be launching a counterbid to the already agreed offer from Heineken and Carlsberg for S&N.

Mortgage bank Alliance & Leicester, which had another bad day yesterday after its reported massive write downs, had another fallback this morning, down 20p at 472p with a Morgan Stanley broker downgrade as well. New target is 370p, down from 730p. Goldman Sachs joined in, reiterating its ’sell’ rating and added its target was down to 455p from 627.