■ Video game retailer Game said it approaches the key Christmas shopping season cautiously and has seen softer than expected sales of some software releases
■ Supermarket giant Tesco saw strong sales in the third quarter as its Clubcard reward scheme helped it draw in customers and it continued to benefit from increasing non-food sales.
■ Mining giant Xstrata is to take charges of nearly $2.5bn this year after restructuring its copper, zinc and nickel operations in Canada and Australia.
■ Domino Printing Sciences revealed an 11 per cent increase in annual pre-tax profit and raised its dividend after a series of cost cutting measures ().
■ Italian restaurant chain Carluccio's posted a fall in profits in the year to September 30 as customers felt the pinch of the economic crisis, but said it had seen signs of improved consumer confidence in recent weeks ().
■ Care home operator Southern Cross expects to resume dividend payments next year, despite posting another big loss in the year to September ().
Continues below...
■ Investors who held shares in Northern Rock when the Newcastle-based lender was nationalised early last year will get no compensation.
■ Wood products group Accsys Technologies is to raise €17m through a share issue to increase production.
■ Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) shares dropped below 30p today, almost matching last week's lows of 29.62p, and temporarily went into auction for 5 minutes at about 11:36am today, to stem the decline.
■ Lloyds Banking Group says it enjoyed "strong investor demand" for its US bond exchange, part of the lender's £22.5bn fundraising.
■ DQE, the AIM listed animation, gaming and entertainment group, has won an exclusive deal with Australian Broadcasting Corporation for the broadcasting of 52 episodes of the animated series of 'The Jungle Book' and a 60 minute TV Feature.
■ Shares in Carclo rallied after the technical plastics supplier and its Conductive Inkjet Technology (CIT) unit signed a deal with Atmel for the development of a new touch screen product based upon CIT's patented photolithographic metallisation film.
■ Plastics group Victrex saw profits slide in the year to 30 September as demand slumped but said it had successfully cut costs while maintaining growth prospects, leaving it well placed to benefit from the upturn.
■ Kosmos Energy, Tullow Oil's operating partner on the West Cape Three Points Block, offshore Ghana, has reported another encouraging test drilling.
■ Wireless equipment tester Anite reported a sharp drop in half-year pre-tax profit as customers continued to tighten their budgets but said it was trading in line for the full year.
■ Van hire group Northgate reported a drop in half-year pre-tax profits but said it looks forward with increased confidence.
■ Intermediate Capital, an investor in and manager of buyout debt, said a £68m capital gain will be realised as a result of the sale of its equity and mezzanine investments in Marken Group.
■ Shares in Microcap slumped after the investment firm announced a placing to raise £200,000 in a measure the directors say they believe 'afford the company its last realistic opportunity to survive and to restart its investing business.'
■ The market gave a cool reception to Australian coal group Caledon Resources' announcement that it was no longer looking for a buyer given the positive outlook for the coal market.
FOR A SUMMARY OF LATEST MOVEMENTS IN EQUITY, COMMODITY AND CURRENCY MARKETS, SEE FT.COM'S MARKETS PAGE
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NEWSPAPER SHARE TIPS (8 DEC 2009):
Full round-up of newspaper share tips (sourced from Sharecast)
PRESS HEADLINES:
Top investment banks, including Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, are being lobbied by the government to contribute tens of millions of pounds to a new lending initiative for credit-starved small businesses.
Executives from global financial institutions were called to a meeting on Monday with Alistair Darling, the chancellor, and Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, to discuss their participation in the scheme, which Mr Darling was keen to announce as part of his pre-Budget report on Wednesday, the FT reports.
British taxpayers are insuring almost £170bn of Royal Bank of Scotland's toxic assets outside of Britain, Treasury documents released yesterday show. The bank, soon to be 84 per cent taxpayer-owned, is putting £282bn of assets into the Government's giant insurance scheme. Of that sum, less than £114.5bn is in Britain. About £75bn of assets are in continental Europe, many from RBS's acquisition of ABN Amro. The rest are in the United States and elsewhere, including the Cayman Islands, the Times reports.
Gilt traders will be in line for bumper bonuses this year after generating big profits from the £200bn quantitative easing (QE) scheme approved by the Treasury. The Debt Management Office, which manages the sale of Government bonds, has increased the amount of gilts it has sold this year – £173bn since the beginning of the financial year in April, compared with £93bn during the same period last year, the Telegraph reports.
Retailers' hopes of a bumper Christmas were dampened yesterday as figures revealed sales in November fell a long way short of expectations. Underlying UK retail sales, excluding new space, grew at an annual rate of 1.8 per cent last month, a marked decrease on October's 3.8 per cent growth, said the joint KPMG British Retail Consortium (BRC) survey. The figures were particularly disappointing given that November last year was a particularly bad month, the Independent reports.
Meanwhile, fears that high street activity in December could remain muted were exacerbated as the number of shoppers hitting the high street fell by nearly 5 per cent last weekend. Figures from Experian Footfall, which monitors high street shoppers, showed the footfall across the UK was 4.6 per cent lower on Saturday than on the comparable Saturday last year, with a 5.1 per cent drop on Sunday, the Times reports.
Fears over the solvency of Greece reached a new level on Monday night as Standard & Poors put the country's debt on notice for an imminent downgrade. The agency placed the country on credit watch negative, meaning it is likely to lose its A- rating within months. The country already has the lowest credit rating in the eurozone, but has come under greater scrutiny amid fears that its newly-elected government may avoid imposing significant cuts on the public finances, the Telegraph writes.
An investigation into alleged bribery involving one of Britain's biggest water companies has spread to one of the group's consultancy firms, The Times has learnt. Welsh Water, owned by Glas Cymru, is examining the relationship between it and ChandlerKBS, a Cardiff cost and project management consultancy. The investigation is understood to focus on a former employee of Welsh Water with links to ChandlerKBS, and to examine a series of allegedly improper supply deals struck with the sub-contractor.
Energy suppliers are making more money from household customers, with margins doubling in the past year, Ofgem disclosed yesterday. The industry regulator said gross margins, which include costs such as marketing and IT as well as profits, rose to £210 per dual-fuel customer in November, up from £160 in August. In its quarterly energy report, Ofgem added that the figure would rise by a further £70 in the next six months unless suppliers cut their prices, the Independent reports.
