The FTSE was up 12 points at about 5,780 in its first hour of trading, basically on the back of the turn up over the pond last night before closing. The FTSE 250 was up around 80 points at 10,025. As mentioned, in the US last night the DJI did much better in the end, thanks to some bargain basement searching and some encouraging comments by big techie, Cisco Systems. The DJI closed down 45.1 points at 12,213.8, BUT this was up about 200 points from the session’s low earlier on. There had been a poor start as Citibank took some more stick early in the session after Merrills lowered its full-year earnings prediction for the year. A Dubai fund executive then added that Citibank will need to raise more cash to stay in business. Then, of course, was the Intel update, which was negative. So Cisco’s news bouyed everyone somewhat. The S&P500 closed down 4.59 points at 1,326.75 and the Nasdaq actually rose 1.68 points to close at 2,260.28. In the Far East today the Nikkei 225 closoed down 20.22 points at 12,972.06, whilst in Hong Kong the Hang Seng was down about 230 points at 22,888 by its lunchtime chow. Let’s hope all the ‘Eights’ in the lunchtime figure brings the market some luck in the afternoon. Here in London this morning it was fairly ok too, with M&A rumours around Liberty International, the property company, whilst TV broadcaster ITV was up on a positive update. Liberty International was up nealry 60 points after an hour, tarding at 10-quid a pop after press reports of some merger & aquisition rumours for the proprty group from both Australia and Singapore. ITV was up 1.7p at 68.2p after reporting lower revenue for last year but added that it expectes to see a better year this year. Last year’s phone-in problems, meaning massive refunds etc, was said to be partly to blame for the figures. With the banks going ex-dividend today most fell back accordingly, with the big boys taking about 30 points of the FTSE 100 figures this morning just by going ex-div. There was also a pointer or two reported in the FT that Barclays & Lloyfds TSB were under some sort of investigation by the US relating to potential violations of sanctions against four countries, namely: Libya, Iran, Cuba, and Sudan. So by about 9am we had Barclays down about 17p at 440p, Lloyds TSB down 16p 424p, and RBS down 15p at 352p. HSBC, on the other hand, continued on from yesterday with another rise up 16p at 785p. Peer HBOS also did ok early doors, up 18p at 562 after an ABN Amro upgrade to ‘hold’ from ’sell’.