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FTSE pulls back after three goods sessions

After three good days, shares in London hit the buffers this morning with the FTSE 100 index down 50 points mid-morning. Most of the earlier analysis featured another string of important corporate results.

BAe Systems announced an increase in half-year profit and said its outlook for 2007 as a whole was expected to benefit from the US-led Land & Armaments and UK Programmes & Support sectors where growth was ahead of expectations. Schroders said that half-year pre-tax profits rose to £185.6m compared to £132.3m last year. Funds under management also rose to £137.6bn at the end of the first half, up from £128.5bn previously. Results from Aviva as expected included the cost of recent wet weather with flood claims holding back another strong half for its life arm. The company sustained a further £165m of flood losses in July, which will be reported in the full year results, but overall the market was not unhappy and the shares rose slightly.

Shares in International Power were down over 4%, despite profit from operations excluding exceptionals up 6.1% but exceptional charges leading to a pre-tax loss of £53m compared with a profit of £458m last year. First Choice cautioned that margins were under pressure from higher airport taxes and fuel costs despite good demand for holidays over the summer season, with revenues cumulatively up 6% on volume growth of 3%. BPP Holdings posted lower than expected profits for the first half of the year, and also announced that it had appointed Roger Siddle as chief executive, with effect from 1st November.

Mike Estrey
Head of Research at Blue Index, the experts in Day Trading
09/08/2007

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