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Good Morning ShareCrazies
This Morning in London major stocks recouped opening losses to trade modestly higher in early deals. Scottish & Newcastle (SCTN) added 10.5p at 745p, after reports in the Sunday Telegraph the company was approached by Anheuser-Busch, the US brewer of Budweiser, and private equity funds Blackstone and Texas Pacific Group about a potential £4.6bn bid for full control of BBH. S&N already controls 50% of the BBH alongside Carlsberg, but the Edinburgh-based brewer is preparing a bid for full control of BBH as part of its own defence against Carlsberg, the paper said. Earlier today, S&N said it sees its full-year results in line with the expectations given at its third-quarter update, as it reiterated its position that the 780p-a-share proposal from Carlsberg A/S and Heineken NV undervalues the company. At 9:45 the FTSE-100 was up 4.6 points at 6,206.6 with the FTSE-250 ahead 184.3 points at 10,014.1.
BROKER RECOMMENDATIONS
Citigroup has upgraded Bovis (BVS) to hold from sell (565p target price).
Daniel Stewart has initiated coverage of Silverjet (SIL) appending a sell recommendation and a 0p (zero) target price, saying that the business model doesn’t work and the broker can’t see that it ever will.
The broker reiterates buy Carphone Warehouse (CPW) (price target 416p) and hold IG Group (IGG) (raising the price target to 450p from 410p and raising estimates) and ASOS (ASC) (260p target).
Daniel Stewart says buy Sport Media Group (SPMG) (price target 110p).
Merrill reiterates buy Premier Oil (PMO) (price target 1500p) and has neutral on AGA Food Service (AGA) and IG Group (IGG).
Morgan Stanley has downgraded Tesco (TSCO) to underweight from overweight (cutting the price target to 375p from 480p) and suggests switching into Carrefour (CFR) and reiterates overweight on Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNN) (cutting the price target to 250p from 290p).
The broker has overweight on William Hill (WMH) (raising the target to 585p from 530p).
UBS reiterates buy Unilever (ULVR) (€27 target price).
NEWS ROUND-UP
Last Friday in New York shares closed steeply lower, as the Dow Jones recorded its worst first-8-days-of-a-year run, in 17-years, as downgrades and write-downs signalled slowing consumer spending and fuelled talk of recession. The Dow Jones fell 246.79-points to 12606.30, the Nasdaq lost 48.58-points to stand at 2439.94, while the S&P declined 19.31-points to close at 1401.02. On the week the Dow Jones lost 1.5%, with the Nasdaq down 2.6% and the S&P declining 0.7%. For 2008 the Dow has dropped 658.52 points, or 5%.
On this day in:-
1814 - The last London Frost Fair, with crowds flocking onto the frozen ice covering the River Thames.
1878 - Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his latest invention, the telephone, to Queen Victoria.
1900 - Puccini's opera 'Tosca' was premiered in Rome, despite a bomb scare by the composer's envious contemporaries.
1907 - More than 1,000 were killed in an earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica which destroyed most of the town.
1937 - 'Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs', Walt Disney's first full length technicolour cartoon film, opened in the United States of America.
1943 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and the Great British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, met at Casablanca during World War II.
1953 - Marshal Tito was elected President of Yugoslavia.
1980 - Gold reached a new record price on this day, hitting more than $800 an ounce.
1982 - Mark Thatcher, son of the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was rescued from the Sahara Desert, after going missing for 6-days while on a rally.
1989 - British Muslims held public burnings of Salman Rushdie's controversial book 'The Satanic Verses'.
1996 - The body of missing Great British backpacker Johanne Masheder was found in a ravine in Thailand. A monk was later charged with robbery and murder.
1997 - Footballers Bruce Grobbelaar, John Fashanu and Hans Segers went on trial accused of accepting bribes to fix matches.
WEEKLY DIARY
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Compiled in association with HB PLC and WH Ireland Ltd
