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Good Morning ShareCrazies
This Morning in London major shares were firmly lower in early trade, after Wall Street's fall on Friday and Asia's today. Pharmaceuticals company Shire (SHP) was one of the biggest fallers in early trade, down 44p to 946p pence, with Sanford Bernstein cutting its rating to 'underperform' from 'market perform' and reducing its price target to 910p from 1,120p. The broker cited the slow performance of recent drug launches. At 11:31, the FTSE-100 was 91.6 points lower at 5,777.4 with the FTSE-250 off 80.3 points at 9,658.2.
BROKER RECOMMENDATIONS
KBC Peel Hunt reiterates buy Senior (SNR) and has cut estimates on Food & drink.
The broker has a positive recommendation on the Motor Retailers Sector.
Landsbanki says hold Healthcare Locums (HLO) and reiterates buy International Ferro Metals (IFL) (easing up the price target to 226p from 225p).
The broker says buy Phoenix IT (PNX).
Lehman has equal-weight on BSkyB (BSY) (730p target price).
The broker has reviewed the UK Insurance stocks, in which they have Prudential (PRU) as their Top pick and sees Legal & General (LGEN) and Aviva (AV.) as inexpensive and reliable.
JP Morgan has previewed the European Telcom stocks in which it has Vodafone (VOD) as its preferred large-cap stock.
The broker has underweight on Marston’s (MARS).
NEWS ROUND-UP
Last Friday in New York shares stuttered as investor showed their concern once more as talk that the expected 50-basis-point cut in rates by the Federal Reserve next week, would in fact be reined-in and might only be 25-basis-points. Having been up over 100-points earlier in the day, the Dow Jones closed down 177.44-points at 12207.17, the Nasdaq fell 34.72-points to 2326.20, while the S&P lost 21.46-points to close at 1330.61. Albeit that the Dow closed down on the day, the index managed to finish the week up 0.9%, with the Nasdaq off 0.6% and the S&P putting on 0.4%.
On this day in:-
1807 - London's Pall Mall became the first street in any city in the world to be lit by gaslight.
1829 - The public hanging of body-snatcher William Burke in Edinburgh.
1908 - The opening of the London Playhouse Theatre.
1932 - Japanese troops occupied Shanghai at the start of a full-scale invasion of China.
1935 - Iceland became the first country in the world to legalise abortion.
1942 - World War II: in North Africa, the German Africa Corps forced the Great British 8th Army to retreat to the town of El Alamein.
1953 - At Wandsworth Prison in London, 19-year-old Derek Bentley was hung for the murder of a policeman. 16-year-old Christopher Craig, who actually fired the gun, escaped the gallows because of his age.
1986 - At 11:38 a.m. EST, the space shuttle Challenger was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Onboard was Christa McAuliffe, who was on her way to becoming the first U.S. civilian to travel into space on a non-scientific mission. McAuliffe, a 37-year-old high school teacher from New Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place among the 7-member crew of the Challenger. She underwent months of shuttle training, and then, beginning on 23rd January was forced to wait 6-long days as the Challenger's launch countdown was repeatedly delayed due to weather and technical problems. Finally, on 28th January the shuttle lifted off. Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds of spectators on the ground, including Christa's family, stared in disbelief as the shuttle exploded in a forking plume of smoke and fire. Millions more watched the wrenching tragedy unfold on live television. There were no survivors. A presidential commission appointed to investigate the accident determined that the explosion was caused by the failure of an O-ring seal in one of the 2 solid-fuel rockets. The elastic O-ring did not respond as expected because of the cold temperature at launch time, which began a chain of events that lead to the massive explosion. As a result of the tragedy, NASA did not send astronauts into space for more than 2-years as it redesigned a number of features of the space shuttle.
WEEKLY DIARY
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