This Morning in London headline shares initially opened lower as investors await the first pre-budget report by Chancellor Alistair Darling. J Sainsbury (SBRY) was a major loser, down 5p at 579p after the FT reported that the Sainsbury family may derail the Delta Two bid. The report said that the Sainsbury family was threatening last night to derail Delta Two's £10.6bn bid proposal for the supermarket chain unless the Qatari-backed investment fund succeeds in hammering out an agreement with the pension trustees about future funding during the coming days. SG Securities downgraded the group to 'hold' from 'buy' with a maintained target of 600p. However, by 9:30 the FTSE-100 was up 34.4 points at 6,575.3 with the FTSE-250 up 38.6 points at 11,367.3.
Altium Securities reiterates hold Regent Inns (REG) with a 95p target, has a buy and 110p target for Powerleague (PWR) and a buy and 195p target for Centaur Media (CAU).
BD Research has an add and £52.50 target for Greggs (GRG).
Citigroup reiterates buy and £14.50 target for Shire (SHP).
Deutsche Bank resumes coverage of Barclays (BARC) with a buy and 740p target.
HSBC downgrades Peter Hambro Mining (POG) and Randgold Resources (RRS) to neutral from overweight.
WH Ireland reiterates outperform and 105p target for Powerleague (PWR) and outperforms for White Young Green (WHY) and Driver Group (DRV).
KBC Peel Hunt upgrades Care UK (CUK) to hold from reduce, upgrades Powerleague (PWR) to add from hold, raising estimates and reiterates hold Regent Inns (REG), cutting estimates.
Landsbanki Securities reiterates buy and 186p target for LogicaCMG (LOG), has a buy for N Brown (BWNG), a hold for Carpetright (CPR), a reduce for Colt Telecom (COLT), cutting estimates, a hold for Greggs (GRG), a reduce for Clinton Cards (CC.) and buys for Satcom (SGH) and Inspicio (INP).
JP Morgan has an overweight and £18.50 target for BAT (BATS), raises target price for AstraZeneca (AZN) to £25 from £24 and cuts target price for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to £13 from £14.
Numis has a buy and 80p target for Clinton Cards (CC.), a hold and £44.70 target for Greggs (GRG), a buy and 562p target for Gyrus Group (GYG), a buy and 365p target for N Brown (BWNG), a hold and 95p target for Northern Foods (NFDS), a buy and 120p target for Powerleague (PWR), a hold and 70p target for Regent Inns (REG), a hold and 450p target for Tate & Lyle (TATE) and an add and 181p target for Trading Emissions (TRE).
Panmure Gordon has a buy and 700p target for Burberry (BRBY), a buy and £13.50 target for Carpetright (CPR), a buy sand 880p target for Cranswick (CWK), a buy and 970p target for Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGO), a buy for Electric Word (ELE), lifting target to 12p from 11p, a buy and 178p target for LogicaCMG (LOG), a hold and 313p target for Marshalls (MSLH), a buy and 200p target for MAXjet Airways (MAXJ), a buy and 140p target for Northern Foods (NFDS), a hold for Regent Inns (REG), a buy and 318p target for RPC (RPC) and a buy and 300p target for Xaar (XAR).
Sanford Bernstein reiterates outperform BP (BP.), has an outperform and 810p target for Barclays (BARC), reiterates outperform and 550p target for Tesco (TSCO), has a market perform and 600p target for Sainsbury (SBRY) and a market perform and 265p target for William Morrison (MRW).
SG Securities downgrades Sainsbury (SBRY) to hold from buy with a 600p target.
UBS has downgraded Taylor Wimpey (TW.) to hold from buy and Redrow (RDW) to sell from neutral.
NEWS ROUND-UP
Last Night in New York stocks closed mostly lower, with the market taking cues from falling oil and gold prices, while investors awaited third-quarter reports, with Dow component Alcoa unofficially launching earnings season today. Technology stocks were among the few bright spots, with the sector picking up modest gains as search giant Google closed at a record high of $610.69. The Dow Jones fell 22.3 points to close at 14,043.7, with 24 of its 30 components lower. The S&P dropped 5.01 points to stand at 1,552.58, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq gained 7.05 points to 2,787.37.
On this day in:-
1997 - The campaign to ban landmines, a cause made popular by Diana, Princess of Wales before her death, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1990 - Hundreds of Chinese queued to buy 'Big Macs' when McDonald's opened its first restaurant in China, in Shenzhen.
1980 - Great British playwright Harold Pinter married author Lady Antonia Fraser, the former wife of Conservative MP Sir Hugh Fraser.
1974 - German businessman Oskar Schindler, credited with saving 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust, died at the age of 66. A member of the Nazi party, he ran an enamel works factory in Kraków, Poland, employing workers from the nearby Jewish ghetto. When the ghetto was liquidated, he persuaded Nazi officials to allow the transfer of his workers to the Plaszow labour camp, thus saving them from deportation to the death camps. In 1944, all Jews at Plaszow were sent to Auschwitz, but Schindler, at great risk to himself, bribed officials into allowing him to keep his workers and set up a factory in a safer location in occupied Czechoslovakia. By the war's end, he was penniless, but he had saved 1,200 Jews. In 1962, he was declared a Righteous Gentile by Yad VaShem, Israel's official agency for remembering the Holocaust. According to his wishes, he was buried in Israel at the Catholic cemetery on Mount Zion.
1973 - Rock 'n roll star Elvis Presley divorced his wife Pricilla, in California.
1968 - Prime Minister Harold Wilson met Rhodesian premier Ian Smith aboard HMS Fearless in Gibraltar to discuss Rhodesia's decision to declare UDI -a Universal Declaration of Independence.
1967 - Revolutionary leader Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, the Argentinian-born guerilla fighter, who was captured in Bolivia was shot.
1962 - Uganda proclaimed its independence from Great Britain.
1961 - A volcano erupting on the island of Tristan da Cunha forced Great Britain to evacuate more than 260 islanders.
1948 - English football legend Billy Wright first captained the England international team aged 24, against Northern Ireland.
1934 - The assassination of Alexander, King of Yugoslavia and the French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou by Croatian terrorists in Marseilles.
1924 - In Great Britain, the Irish Free State Bill received the Royal Assent.
1911 - Great Britain launched its super-Dreadnaught battleship HMS King George V at Portsmouth.
1905 - The world famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt suffered a tragic accident while playing 'Floria' in 'Tosca'. Jumping from a parapet, she fell heavily on her right leg because stage hands have forgotten to prepare the mattress for her to land on. Her badly injured leg was later amputated.
1899 - An ultimatum to the Great British from Boer leader Paul Kruger prompted the start of the Second Anglo-Boer War in southern Africa.
1888 - The official opening of the 555ft white marble Washington Monument, designed by Robert Mills.
1804 - The city of Hobart was founded in Tasmania, the island off the southern coast of mainland Australia.
1779 - The first 'Luddite' riots broke out in a lace factory in Loughborough, as workers protested against labour-saving machinery, which was likely to make them redundant. Similar riots began at a spinning cotton factory in Manchester.
1701 - Yale College in the United States of America received its charter.
1470 - Henry VI of England was restored to the throne, having been deposed 9-years earlier in 1461.
