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Good Morning ShareCrazies
This Morning in London major shares opened lower as investors showed caution ahead of key UK CPI inflation figures. Tesco (TSCO) was the biggest FTSE faller, down 25p at 395p as it reported that UK sales growth over the Christmas and New Year period was below market forecasts, reflecting intensifying competition in the sector and the declining consumer environment. At 9:20 the FTSE-100 was down 39.3 points at 6,176.4 with the FTSE-250 off 46.8 points at 9,984.8.
BROKER RECOMMENDATIONS
Citigroup has downgraded Hochschild Mining (HOC) to hold from buy (cutting the price target to 460p) and Balfour Beatty (BBY).
Credit Suisse has cut its sector stance on the European Auto’s to underweight from marketweight.
Deutsche has downgraded Legal & General (LGEN) hold from buy (target 147p target price).
Goldman has upgraded Sainsbury’s (SBRY) to buy from neutral (cutting the price target to 440p from 465p) and Electrocomponents (ECM) to buy from neutral and downgraded FirstGroup (FGP) to sell from neutral.
The broker has upgraded Signet (SIG) and Wolfson Micro (WLF) to neutral from sell.
HSBC reiterates overweight Cobham (COB) (raising the price target to 240p from 235p).
NEWS ROUND-UP
Last Night in New York stocks closed higher, with the Dow's triple-digit rise triggered by strong results from IBM, helping propel an oversold market higher. The Dow Jones rose 171.9 points to end at 12,778.2. The S&P gained 15.23 points to 1,416.25, while the Nasdaq climbed 38.36 points to 2,478.30.
On this day in:-
1984 - After losing his seat at the 1983 General Election, Tony Benn won Labour's nomination for the Chesterfield by-election. Benn subsequently won the by-election and retained his seat until he retired from the House of Commons in 2001.
1997 - Diana, Princess of Wales was criticised for becoming embroiled in international politics, by calling for a ban on the production and sale of landmines during her four-day visit to Angola.
1974 - The first episode of 'Happy Days' was aired on American television. A minor character, super-cool biker Arthur 'the Fonz' Fonzarelli, soon came to be the show's central character.
1973 - Following peace talks in Paris, U.S. President Nixon ordered a halt to American bombing in Vietnam.
1970 - The Republic of Biafra, a breakaway state of eastern Nigeria, surrendered to the Nigerian government after 3-years of resistance.
1970 - Muammar al-Qaddafi, the young Libyan army captain who deposed King Idris in September 1969, was proclaimed premier of Libya by the so-called General People’s Congress.
1953 - A purge of senior officials in the East German government began.
1951 - Ilse Koch, wife on the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, was sentenced to life imprisonment in a court in West Germany. Koch was nicknamed the 'Witch of Buchenwald' for her extraordinary sadism.
1947 - Elizabeth Short, nicknamed 'The Black Dahlia', was found dead in California. Her murderer has never been found.
1929 - The bitrth of Martin Luther King. King was a clergymen, Nobel Peace Prize winner and one of the principal leaders of the American civil rights movements. He was assassinated on 4 April 1968 during a visit to Memphis, Tennessee. One of his greates and most remembered speeches is known as the “I have a dream” speech …….”I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.”
1919 - Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, the leaders of a radical socialist revolution launched in Berlin, were murdered a by right-wing paramilitary.
1759 - The opening of the British Museum at Montague House, Bloomsbury in London.
1559 - The coronation of Queen Elizabeth I.
69AD - Marcus Salvius Otho was proclaimed Emperor of Rome. Three months later Otho committed suicide after his army was defeated.
588 BC - Nebuchadrezzarr II of Babylon laid seige to Jerusalem.
WEEKLY DIARY
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Compiled in association with HB PLC and WH Ireland Ltd
