The FTSE
100 is called to open 15 points higher at 6155.
UK Gilt 10
Year Yield 1.5368%, Spot Gold $1234.95+2.70 Brent Crude $39.30 +0.34
$ per £
1.4108
$ per €
1.1091
€ per £
1.2716
U.S.
stocks slipped in light trading, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index
posting back-to-back declines for the first time this month, as investors
considered the capacity of central banks to boost global growth. The complexion
of Tuesday’s retreat mirrored yesterday’s results, with commodity companies
among the biggest losers, joined again by health-care and financial shares.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. plunged 51 percent after cutting its
profit forecast. Apple Inc. added 2 percent amid positive analyst comments on
iPhone sales, while baby formula maker Mead Johnson Nutrition Co. surged 11
percent on deal speculation. The S&P
500 declined 0.2 percent to 2,015.93 at 4 p.m. in New York, trimming an earlier
0.7 percent slide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 22.40 points to
17,251.53, after erasing a 108-point decline. The Nasdaq Composite Index slid
0.5 percent, while the Russell 2000 Index sank 1.6 percent. About 6.5 billion
shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges, 26 percent below the 2016 average.
Yesterday’s session saw the fewest shares traded this year.
PRESS
COMMENTARY
Financial
Times: Shares in Valeant lost half their value on Tuesday after the besieged
Canadian drugmaker raised the prospect of defaulting on its $30 billion of debt
and slashed full-year profit targets for the second time in five months.
The Daily
Telegraph: The trigger for the next global recession is at last coming into
view after a series of loud distractions and false alarms; the Atlanta Federal
Reserve's gauge of "sticky-price" inflation in the US soared to a
post-Lehman peak of 3% in February.
COMPANY
NEWS
Deutsche
Boerse AG and London Stock Exchange Group Plc agreed to merge, a deal that
would create a titan of European trading as long as rival suitors don’t upend
the agreement and regulators give it their blessing. LSE’s equity holders will
own 45.6 percent of the enlarged group, while Deutsche Boerse stockholders will
get the remaining 54.4 percent, according to a statement on Wednesday.
Smiths
Group PLC (SMIN.LN) Wednesday reiterated its expectations for 2016 as it
recorded a 28% rise in pretax profit and increased its dividend during the half
year. The technology company said its pretax profit during the six months ended
Jan. 31, rose to 168 million pounds ($241.5 million) from GBP131 million on
revenue of GBP1.37 billion and GBP1.42 billion respectively.
Swiss Re
requests authorization for share buyback program of as much as CHF1b, according
to e-mailed statement. Proposes 8.2% increase in regular div. to CHF4.60/share.
U.K.-listed
independent oil producer Tullow Oil PLC (TLW.LN) said Wednesday that the
Cheptuket-1 well in Block 12A in Northern Kenya has encountered "good oil
shows."
Volkswagen
AG lost market share in Europe for the sixth month in a row as the German
carmaker’s diesel- emissions scandal pushed buyers to the likes of Fiat
Chrysler Automobiles NV, Mercedes-Benz and Ford Motor Co. Volkswagen’s brands
accounted for 24 percent of new auto registrations in February versus 25.4
percent a year earlier, the ACEA, said Wednesday.
Sodexo
Wins 10-Year A$2.5 Billion Contract From Rio Tinto. The French on-site services
company said in an e-mailed statement that it was awarded a 10-year contract
estimated at A$2.5, or $1.87 billion, to provide facilities management services
at mining company Rio Tinto’s operations in Australia’s Pilbara region.
Cape 2015
statutory revenue GBP711.4m vs GBP690.5m year earlier. Co. releases preliminary
results. Cape FY pretax GBP29.1m vs GBP30m. Cape sees mkt conditions to
continue to weaken through 2016. Cape FY dividend maintained at 14p/share.
Allied-Bristol
Life Sciences, a biopharmaceutical enterprise jointly owned between Allied
Minds and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, announced that it has launched a new
subsidiary, iβeCa Therapeutics, to license proprietary compounds from NYU
School of Medicine that target the Wnt signalling pathway.
Mead
Johnson Shares Rise After Blog Speculation on Deal Interest. Shares of infant
formula maker Mead Johnson Nutrition Co. rose as much as 11 percent Tuesday
after a blog post on the Betaville website suggested that rivals Nestle SA and
Danone might be interested in taking it over. Mead Johnson has started working
with bankers from Lazard Ltd. after receiving expressions of interest from
Nestle and Danone, according to the short blog post on Monday, which cited
unidentified sources.
Price
comparison website Moneysupermarket.com Group PLC's (MONY.LN) founder Simon
Nixon is selling a 6.9% stake in the company. Source Quilter Cheviot
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