This Morning in London major shares were lower in opening deals. Among early movers, Tesco (TSCO) dropped 0.5p to 487p, after reporting a 4.1% increase in UK like-for-like sales excluding petrol in the third quarter covering the thirteen weeks to November 24th. The performance was in line with market expectations and represented an improvement on the 2.4% achieved in the second quarter, when the poor summer weather hit sales in June and July. Rio Tinto (RIO), meanwhile, stormed ahead, up 93p at 5,536p, on reports of a potential takeover battle. At 9:30 the FTSE-100 was down 55.7 points at 6,330.9 with the FTSE-250 down 144.4 points at 10,415.6.
BROKER RECOMMENDATIONS
ABN Amro has a buy for Imperial Tobacco (IMT), upgrades British Airways (BAY) to hold from sell and has buys for easyJet (EZJ) and Ryanair (RYA).
Bear Stearns has outperforms for HSBC (HSBA) and Shire (SHP).
Credit Suisse has an outperform for Vodafone (VOD), raising target to 200p from 185p and as an outperform for Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN).
Deutsche Bank has a hold for Burberry (BRBY), cutting target to 600p from 675p.
Evolution has a buy for Tesco (TSCO) and has buys for Weir Group (WEIR), Greene King (GNK), Filtrona (FLTR), Innovation Group (TIG) and Dhir India Investments (DHIR).
Goldman Sachs upgrades Aer Lingus (AERL) to buy from neutral and Greencore (GNC) to neutral from sell.
HSBC initiates coverage of Diageo (DGE) with an overweight rating.
Merrill Lynch adds HSBC (HSBA) to its least preferred list.
Morgan Stanley initiates coverage of Alliance & Leicester (AL.) and Standard Chartered (STAN) with equal-weights, Barclays (BARC) and HBOS (HBOS) with overweights and Lloyds TSB (LLOY) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) with underweights.
Numis has a buy and 192p target for Carluccio's (CARL), a buy and £10.60 target for Greene King (GNK), a buy and 209p target for ITE Group (ITE), a buy and 590p target for John David Group (JD.), a buy and 32p target for Regent Inns (REG), an add and 570p target for Tesco (TSCO) and an add and 900p target for Weir Group (WEIR).
Seymour Pierce has a hold for Civica (CIV), retains buy on Leyshon Resources (LRL), reiterates buy for John David Group (JD.), has a buy and 37p target for Oxford Biomedica (OXB), retains buy for Talvivaara (TALV) and has an outperform for UBC Media (UBC).
UBS has buys for Wolseley (WOS), Pearson (PSON), Premier Foods (PFD), cutting target to 270p from 290p, Imperial Energy (IEC) and Catlin (CGL).
NEWS ROUND-UP
Last Night in New York stocks declined for the first time in five sessions amid ongoing worries about the direction of the economy after a gauge of manufacturing activity fell slightly and the government vowed to help some subprime-mortgage holders. Major indexes pared losses after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the government is working on a plan to refinance loans for some subprime-mortgage borrowers. The Dow Jones fell 57.1 points to end at 13,314.6, with 20 of its 30 components lower. The S&P fell 8.72 points to 1,472.42, while the Nasdaq declined 23.83 points to 2,637.13.
On this day in:-
1997 - Europe's health ministers voted to ban tobacco advertising throughout the European Union, although agreed that motor-racing, which relied heavily on sponsorship and advertising by tobacco companies, should be exempt for another 8-years.
1992 - U.S. President George Bush ordered 25,000 U.S. troops into Somalia. In late 1992, civil war, drought, and clan-based fighting created famine conditions that threatened one-fourth of Somalia's population with starvation. The United Nations began a humanitarian mission but found it difficult to distribute food in the war-ravaged nation, so the U.S. agreed to help support the mission with military aid. On 5th June 1993, soldiers under Somali warlord General Mohammed Aidid massacred 24 Pakistani U.N. peacekeepers. U.S. and U.N. forces searched for the elusive strongman, and in August, 400 elite U.S. troops arrived to capture Aidid. Two months later, 18 of these soldiers were killed and 84 wounded during a disastrous assault on Mogadishu's Olympia Hotel. As many as 1,000 Somalis were killed in the violent 17-hour firefight. Three days later, with Aidid still at large, recently inaugurated President Bill Clinton cut his losses and ordered a U.S. withdrawal. Devastating clan fighting continued in Somalia into the 21st-century.
1991 - American Terry Anderson was released by the Islamic Jihad in Lebanon, 2,454 days after being taken hostage in Beirut.
1975 - South Moluccan terrorists hijacked a train and seized the Indonesian Consulate in Amsterdam.
1952 - At least 4,000 people died in a week from breathing difficulties, during a severe London smog.
1937 - One of Great Britain's best-loved comics, the Dandy, was first published by DC Thompson.
1936 - Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin told the House of Commons that King Edward VIII could not marry American divorcee Mrs Wallis Simpson.
1935 - Unemployed engineer Charles Darrow invented the game of Monopoly. It became the world's best-selling box game, with more than 500-million sales.
1905 - The resignation of British Conservative Prime Minister Arthur Balfour.
1829 - Great Britain abolished the Indian custom of 'Suttee' - the ritual suicide of a dead man's widow by joining her husband's funeral pyre.
1804 - Napoleon Bonaparte was officially crowned Emperor of France, after proclaiming himself Emperor in May.
1798 - Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger announced the introduction of Income Tax to help finance the war against France.
1791 - The publication of the first issue of The Observer, the oldest Sunday newspaper in Great Britain.
1586 - Queen Elizabeth I confirmed the death sentence on Mary Queen of Scots.
1154 - The only Englishman ever to be elected Pope, Nicholas Breakspear, became Pope Adrian IV.
