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News Headlines:    US stocks rose Thursday, but closed well off their highs with some profit taking and caution ahead of Friday's important unemployment figures Friday afternoon.

Lloyds: Results ahead of market expectations with a profit increase of 4%.

Standard Life British mutual insurer announced a 25% fall in sales to 691 million pounds as weak stocks and interest rates hit consumer confidence in savings products Total pension sales fell 30 percent to 334 million pounds.

MyTravel Warning: It had reached an agreement in principle to extend 221.6 million pounds of convertible bonds, but added second-half profits would be weaker than expected. Cash flow problems and still significant risk to the company. The firm said it now expected operating profits would be flat in its second half as a result of lower than expected margins and tough trading in Scandinavia and North America.Arriva: The Strategic Rail Authority, Britain's rail regulator, said it had been selected as the preferred bidder for the new Wales & Borders railway operating franchise.

Amvescap report at noon today.

Rio Tinto shares rise despite forecast profit cuts. Australian shares defied a weak profit result and analyst earnings downgrades of approx 5% to rally on Friday,Centrica said on Friday it had sold its stake in the struggling Goldfish credit card business to UK bank Lloyds for a premium of 112.5 million pounds

Corus Group news of a new 1.2 bln eur bank facility and said it expects to report a 100 mln stg improvement in its first half operating result before exceptionals compared with the 141 mln loss seen in the second half of last year but it said market conditions are still tough.

Calendar All GMT	United Kingdom (F)inals (I)nterim	United States (Click Flag)	Europe & World
Fri 1st August	Lloyds TSB (I) PBT 1,146m exp. Amvescap (Q2) Standard Life. Mytravel Update 09.30 UK July CIPS manufacturing PMI	Chevron Texaco (Q2) 13.30 July Non-farm Payrolls 5k exp. 13.30 June Personal Income 0.3% exp. 14.50 July Final Michigan Sentiment 90.5 exp. 15.00 June Construction Spending 0.4% exp. 15.00 July Manufacturing ISM 51.5 exp.	Societe Generale (Q2)
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