This Morning in London major shares were lower in early deals, with banking stocks continuing to bear the brunt of the falls. Northern Rock (NRK) was the top faller, down 13.9p (14%) at 83.1p. The group said it has received additional indicative expressions of interest covering a range of options for the business, one of which contemplates an offer for the company materially below yesterday's closing market price of 97p. Its peers were also lower. Alliance & Leicester (AL.) was off 25.5p at 568.5p, Barclays (BARC) was down 18.5p at 498p, HBOS (HBOS) fell 24p at 717p and Lloyds TSB (LLOY) was down 12.5p at 459.5p. At 9:40 the FTSE-100 was down 82.8 points at 6,143.7 with the FTSE-250 off 233.4 points at 10,266.5.
BROKER RECOMMENDATIONS
Cazenove reiterates in-line on Bradford & Bingley (BB.).
HSBC has initiated coverage of Sergo (SGRO) appending an overweight recommendation and a 545p price target and of WS Atkins (ATK) appending a neutral recommendation and a 1295p target price.
Investec has downgraded Caretech (CTH) to hold from buy and reiterates buy Chrysalis (CHS) (128p target).
WH Ireland reiterates underperform on Enodis (ENO) and reiterates market perform on PayPoint (PAY).
Merrill has downgraded Kelda (KEL) to neutral from buy (950p target price) and says buy Dimension Data (DDT) (raising the price target to 75p from 70p).
The broker has issued a note on the Property Sector, in which they have downgraded Mapeley (MAY), AJ Mucklow (MKLW), Town Centre Securities (TCSC) and Warner Estates (WNER) to sell from neutral.
JP Morgan has overweight on FirstGroup (FGP) (raising the price target to 839p from 822p).
Seymour Pierce says buy Advanced Power Components (APC) and has outperform on Aquarius Platinum (AQP).
The broker says buy ATH Resources (ATH) and Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGO).
UBS has upgraded Standard Life (SL.) to buy from neutral.
NEWS ROUND-UP
Last Night in New York stocks ended with gains as strength in technology stocks overtook ongoing worries about the financial sector, and minutes from the Federal Reserve's October meeting did little to change views of another rate cut ahead. The Fed minutes included expanded forecasts that projected slower growth in the economy next year, and described the decision to cut rates in October as a "close call." After trading in a more than 250-point range in positive and negative territory, the Dow Jones gained 51.7 points at 13,010.1. The S&P gained 6.43 points to 1,439.7, while the Nasdaq rose 3.43 points to 2,596.81.
On this day in:-
1995 - Presidents of Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia accepted a US-brokered peace deal to end the 43 month war in Bosnia.
1974 - Bombs planted by the IRA in 2 Birmingham pubs killed 22 people and injured a further 120.
1958 - Work started on the Forth Road Bridge in Scotland.
1955 - Rock star Elvis Presley signed an exclusive record deal with RCA.
1953 - The discovery of the Piltdown Man skull by Charles Dawson in Sussex in 1912 was finally revealed to have been a hoax.
1936 - Great Britain got its first television gardening programme, 'In Your Garden' with Mr Middleton.
1934 - Cole Porter's musical 'Anything Goes' opened in New York, making American actress/singer Ethel Merman an overnight star.
1918 - At the end of World War I, the German Fleet was surrendered to Great Britain at its northern naval base at Scapa Flow.
1843 - Thomas Hancock patented vulcanised rubber.
1783 - French inventor Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, the Marquis d' Arlandes, made the first manned hot-air balloon flight, travelling 5-miles over Paris in 25-minutes. Their cloth balloon was crafted by French papermaking brothers Jacques Étienne and Joseph Michel Montgolfier, who believed that smoke, not hot air, caused balloons to rise. Fueling the balloon's burner with a combination of damp straw and rags, Pilâtre and d'Arlandes took off from the Chateau de la Muette and ascended as high as 3,000 feet before returning safely to earth. The previous September, the Montgolfiers sent a sheep, a rooster, and a duck aloft in one of their balloons in a prelude to the first untethered manned flight. The barnyard animals stayed afloat for 8-minutes and landed safely 2-miles from the launch site.
