This Morning in London major shares were firmer in early deals today after a strong performance overnight in Asia. Fund manager Schroders (SDR) was the top FTSE-100 riser, up 55p at 1,559p, extending yesterday's gains amid fresh chatter the firm could sell its investment arm to focus on private banking, or just sell several of its low margin businesses, according to the Financial Times. Elsewhere among financials, insurer Resolution (RSL) added 9.5p to 689.5p after the firm revealed after the market close last night that it has rejected a 660p per share cash proposal from Pearl Assurance. Resolution said Pearl's proposal significantly undervalues the group and its prospects as part of a planned merger with Friends Provident (FP.), shares in which slipped 0.1p to 177.7p. At 10:00 the FTSE-100 was up 46.4 points at 6,679.4 with the FTSE-250 ahead 75.9 points at 11,588.0.
BROKER RECOMMENDATIONS
ABN Amro downgrades Barclays (BARC) to hold from buy as it resumes coverage.
Altium Securities reiterates add Innovation Group (TIG) with a 40p target.
Citigroup downgrades Experian Group (EXPN) to hold from buy, cutting target to 560p from 680p.
Credit Suisse downgrades Experian (EXPN) to neutral from outperform, cutting target price to 580p from 700p.
Deutsche Bank reiterates hold and 570p target for Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and has a sell for Northern Rock (NRK).
Evolution Securities has a buy and 195p target for Hays (HAS), a buy and 210p target for Friends Provident (FP.) and an add and 99p target for Autonomy (AU.).
KBC Peel Hunt has a buy for Equest Investment Balkans (EBP).
Landsbanki Securities upgrades Xaar (XAR) to buy from hold, downgrades Imprint (IMP) to hold from buy, reiterates hold Hays (HAS) with a 155p fair value, has a hold for WH Smith (SMWH), a buy for Cookson (CKSN), a hold for Foseco (FOSE), a hold for Sage Group (SGE) while preferring LogicaCMG (LOG), a buy for SDL (SDL), a buy and 900p fair value for Synergy Healthcare (SYR), a reduce for Thorntons (THT), a hold for Northgate Information (NIS), a hold for Imagination Technologies (IMG), reiterates buy for William Hill (WMH) and has a hold for Ladbrokes (LAD).
Lehman Bros has an underweight for C&C Group (CCR), cutting target to €4.2 from €5.1 and an underweight for Sainsbury (SBRY).
The broker has an overweight rating for Old Mutual (OML), raising target to 224p from 213p.
Merrill Lynch reiterates buy for Intermediate Capital (ICP), raising target to £19.50 from £18.50, has a buy and £24.50 target for Vedanta Resources (VED), a sell for Northern Foods (NFDS), a neutral for HBOS (HBOS) and resumes coverage of Nokia (NOK) with a buy and €31 target.
Morgan Stanley upgrades Debenhams (DEB) to equal-weight from underweight with a 110p target.
Seymour Pierce has buys for Air Partner (AIP), Stanley Gibbons (SGI), Theo Fennell (TFL) and Thorntons (THT), outperforms for Hays (HAS) and WH Smith (SMWH) and an underperform for Sage Group (SGE).
SG Securities has a buy and 950p target for Aviva (AV.) and a buy and 429p target for Carphone Warehouse (CPW).
UBS upgrades Carphone Warehouse (CPW) to buy from neutral with a 400p target.
NEWS ROUND-UP
Last Night in New York Wall Street gave back a chunk of Tuesday's record gains, pressured by news that Boeing will delay deliveries of its Dreamliner jet and a report that Alcoa fell short of its earnings estimates. The Dow Jones shed 86.8 points to finish at 14,078.7, scaling back earlier losses that had the Dow off more than 140 points. The S&P declined 2.68 points to 1,562.47. Whilst the Nasdaq advanced 7.70 points to 2,811.61, after earlier climbing to a high of 2,813.67, a level unseen since early 2001.
On this day in:-
1987 - A major sonar exploration of Loch Ness in Scotland failed to find a monster. Searchers on Operation Deepscan spent a week on the loch using £1-million worth of equipment to scan the lake. The flotilla of 24 boats did pick up 3 sonar "contacts" shown on paper as crescent shaped marks. They indicated something big in the waters below Urquhart Castle, but it was claimed that this could have been a seal or a group of salmon.
1986 - US President Ronald Reagan met Russian Premier Mikhil Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland for a summit. Negotiations on nuclear weapons end in failure.
1982 - The wreck of the 'Mary Rose' - the flagship of King Henry VIII of England, was brought to the surface of The Solent, 437 years after sinking while still in harbour.
1980 - The Russian spacecraft Salyut 6 finally returned safely to earth, after its crew had been in space for a record 185-days.
1973 - The start of the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East.
1968 - The US Spacecraft Apollo 7, with a 3 man crew, was launched from Cape Kennedy in Florida.
1962 - Pope John XXIII convened the first ecumenical council in 92-years. Pope John reached the papacy from simple, peasant beginnings and his tolerance and disregard for protocol earned him a reputation for being the sympathetic pope. In summoning an ecumenical council (a general meeting of the bishops of the church) he hoped to bring spiritual rebirth to Catholicism and greater unity with other branches of Christianity. When Vatican Council II opened in the autumn of 1962, he invited Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant observers to attend the proceedings. Pope John XXIII died the following year, but the council continued under his successor, Paul VI, until 1965.
1958 - The start of the 'Space Race' proper, as the Russians launched their first rocket to travel to the moon.
1958 - The first transmission of BBC TV's Saturday afternoon sports programme 'Grandstand'.
1956 - Cricket's slow-scoring Test Match record was set, when Australia score 80 and Pakistan 15 during a full day's play in Karachi.
1919 - The beginning of in-flight catering, when meals were served on a Handley-Page flying from London to Paris. Pre-packed lunch boxes cost 3 shillings (15p) each.
1899 - The start of the Boer War between the Great British Empire and the Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal in southern Africa.
1886 - Other than of a member of the Royal Family, Great Britain's first statue to honour a woman was erected in Walsall in the West Midlands. A statue in memory of Dorothy Pattison, known as Sister Dora.
