Leading equities sleepwalked their way through the morning session, with little in the way of corporate news to perk interest. Economic news has been mixed today with the number of people claiming unemployment benefit falling more than expected in May, but the wider unemployment rate continuing to rise.
The claimant count fell by 30,900 in May, less than the 32,000 fall seen the previous month but well ahead of the 20,000 decline that had been expected. It takes the number of jobseekers down to 1.48m, the lowest level in more than a year. But the wider measure of unemployment rose by 23,000 to 2.47m in the three months to April.
Sainsbury’s is slightly higher. The supermarket has outdone arch rival Tesco in the growth stakes with a 4.6% increase in like for like sales during the first quarter and is apparently doing a buzzing trade in Vuvuzela horns. “We have made a good start to the financial year in line with our expectations,” said boss Justin King.
BP has made more headlines after last night’s address from the Oval Office by President Obama. He demanded that the oil giant hand over control of compensation payments for the Gulf Coast oil spill. Official estimates now put the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf at 60,000 barrels a day compared with initial estimates from BP of just 5,000.
The Times also reports the Brazilian Government raised doubts over BP's $7bn deal to buy deepwater assets in Brazil.
Cairn Energy is ahead after it received formal approval from the Government of Greenland to start drilling the first two wells of a planned four well exploration programme in the Disko West area, offshore Western Greenland.
United Utilities is lower after saying Charlie Cornish is leaving the board after more than six years to run Manchester Airport for a rumoured Ł500,000-a-year. The 49-year-old managing director of Utility Solutions, who joined the utility giant’s board at the start of 2004, will leave later this year.
In the FTSE 250, speciality plastic and fibre products provider Filtrona is up 15% after saying it continues to trade ahead of expectations Having cheered its shareholders back in April with news of strong trading the group said that the outperformance has continued for the nine week period to 5 June.
Elsewhere, the environment for government and public sector contracts has worsened markedly under the new coalition government, consultant and civil engineer contractor Mouchel warned, with its order pipeline falling since March.
Part-nationalised lender Royal Bank of Scotland has sold another piece of its sprawling empire, getting shot of a Pakistani subsidiary at the second attempt. It has reached agreement for the sale of its 99.37% holding in RBS Pakistan to Faysal Bank Limited for €41m, or about 2.5 rupees per share, a substantial discount to last night’s closing price in Karachi.
Agricultural products supplier Wynnstay served up a 12% increase in half year profit and said it remained 'very positive about growth prospects, short and long term.' Intelek shares shot ahead as the electronics group agreed a cash takeover from US firm Teledyne at more than double yesterday’s closing share price. The offer price of 32p per Intelek share represents a premium of approximately of 106% to the last market price. It values thethe company in total at Ł28m.
FTSE 100 - Risers
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 45.40p +2.67%
Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 1,574.00p +1.81%
Old Mutual (OML) 114.80p +1.68%
Aggreko (AGK) 1,469.00p +1.66%
Experian Group (EXPN) 637.50p +1.59%
Vedanta Resources (VED) 2,320.00p +1.35%
Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 1,743.50p +1.31%
Shire Plc (SHP) 1,444.00p +1.19%
Prudential (PRU) 566.50p +1.16%
RSA Insurance Group (RSA) 124.20p +1.14%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Inmarsat (ISAT) 742.00p -4.81%
Severn Trent (SVT) 1,245.00p -4.45%
United Utilities Group (UU.) 538.00p -3.84%
Schroders (SDR) 1,325.00p -2.93%
Kingfisher (KGF) 225.60p -2.55%
Schroders NV (SDRC) 1,068.00p -2.29%
Man Group (EMG) 240.20p -2.16%
Wolseley (WOS) 1,577.00p -1.87%
Vodafone Group (VOD) 140.15p -1.16%
Rolls-Royce Group (RR.) 596.00p -1.16%
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