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CFD Traders DiaryMining and at long last kicks in24/1/2007
There
were signs yesterday that buyers were returning to the mining sector in force,
and this morning the FTSE 100 index has had a good start with the leaderboard
showing gains of 2% to 4% for many sector stocks. Gold has pushed to a high for this year, and
oil has also had a decent rebound with crude for March at 54.8% helping BP and
Royal Dutch Shell.
Results
early on were generally very good, with Northern
Rock beating forecasts for annual profit with the underlying total
coming in 16.5% higher at £588m, and gross lending up 22.7% to £33bn. The dividend was raised 20% with the group
saying it will increase its payout ratio in future. Punch
Taverns said trading since 20th
August 2006 has been in line with expectations, with pubs trading well
in a quiet market. In the same sector, JD
Wetherspoon saw a 5.5% increase in sales in the 12 weeks to 21 January, with
like-for-like sales up by 5.5% in the quarter. Sales in the year-to-date have shown a
like-for-like gain of 7.5%. N Brown Group was a big riser after announcing
it is to return £80m to shareholders after a 14.2% jump in sales in the
21 weeks to 20 January, a better than expected performance.
Cranswick's sales soared in the
three months to December to £140m, an increase of 22% over this time last year.
Total food sales showed an increase of
24% with like-for-like sales up by 21%. The biggest loser today has been Renishaw which posted lower interim
profits and warned that the adverse effects of currency exchange rates, coupled
with softer demand for its products in the CMM market, would result in
profits for the full year being below those for last year.
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