Good morning traders!

In the US last night, the DJIA closed up 50.34 points at 8,469.11 with the S&P500
off 0.89 points at 908.35 and the Nasdaq Composite 15.32 points lower at
1,715.92.

In Asia today, the Nikkei was ahead 68.22 points at 9,366.83, with the Hang Seng
recently up 111.26 points at 17,264.9.

Crude oil traded at $59.70 a barrel on Nymex.

Happy trading!

G.

Morning all. Market reports:

Telegraph
The Times
The Times (Need to know)
FT
The Guardian
The Independent
This is Money

The pound rose to its highest level against the dollar in almost six months on Tuesday as better-than-expected data reinforced hopes that the UK economy has passed its lowest point.
Economy may have gone past low point

Pensions. Actuaries. They used to be two words likely to send even an insomniac into a deep slumber. Not any more. Corporates, analysts and politicians are waking up to the fact that pension liabilities may dwarf many other credit crunch statistics.
The forgotten cost of the credit crunch that will hang over us for years to come

Britain's housebuilders gave cautious support today to hopes that the slump in the market for new homes was easing, although they expect 2009 to remain difficult and said it was too early to call a recovery.
Housebuilders see signs of construction slump easing

We noted on Monday to what degree the United States Oil Fund (USO) ETF had reduced its positions in WTI front-month futures since February and how that has coincided with a not disproportionate build-up in positions of the United States Natural Gas fund (UNG), another ETF in the same group of funds.
United States Oil Fund, redux

Forget peak oil -- a series of new estimates of the world's coal supply suggests reserves may be vastly overestimated, and if the planet isn't running on a majority of alternative energies within the next few decades, we could be facing an unprecedented global energy crisis.
Coal Supply May Be Vastly Overestimated

Despite a sharp fall in Chinese imports and exports in April, China has remained a major force within the metals market. As FT Alphaville reported earlier on Tuesday, both copper and aluminum imports hit record highs in the month, mostly due to stockpiling.
The China copper effect

The ailing US carmaker General Motors saw its shares collapse to their lowest level since the Great Depression after six top executives dumped personal stock holdings, fuelling fear of imminent bankruptcy.
General Motors shares plummet to lowest level since Great Depression

NIKKEI 225	AUSTRALIA ASX200	SHANGHAI	HANG SENG

KOSPI	VIX	GOLD	NYMEX CRUDE

AAL ING: upgraded to buy from hold, tp raised to 2050 from 1250
ANTO Morgan Stanley: downgraded to underweight
AZN Goldman[HB]: upgraded to neutral from sell
BLT Daiwa: tp raised to A$26.34 from A$23.83
BLT ING: downgraded to hold from buy, tp raised to 1650 from 1450
BRBY Goldman: upgraded to neutral from sell
DGMT JPMorgan: downgraded to neutral
ENRC Credit Suisse[HB]: reiterated outperform
IHG UBS: downgraded to sell from neutral
ITV JPMorgan: upgraded to overweight from neutral
KAZ Morgan Stanley: downgraded to underweight
PRTY Morgan Stanley: initiated overweight
RIO Daiwa: downgraded to sell from hold
RIO ING: hold, to raised to 2775 from 1850
SBRY Seymour: reiterated hold
WSM UBS: downgraded to neutral from buy
XTA ING: hold, tp raised to 775 from 425

Midday Market Overview

Greystone/Kyoto
where can i find a list of those companies who go ex-divi tomorrow?
i see you have a list [above]for those ex div today but too late to buy for the divi.
regards
Alex

robert,

click on the forward diary and then using the calender select next wednesday - you should see a list as it stands at the moment in there.

Ian

Ian
thanks, never knew that existed. By chance are ex divi dates normally on Wednesdays. tried a few futures dates and would appear so.
Alex

End-of-day Market Overview

Alex - ex dividend dates are almost always Wednesday - although a handful of companies do have different dates. I can't recall any of the FTSE350 companies having a different day from Wednesday though.

In my experience there can be gaps in ex-div stocks depending on the provider - it's best to check a second source of dates such as Digital Look. Sometimes they will be missing information as well. It's not uncommon here for us to be poised to jump into a stock which is down and out of range on a Wednesday morning, and have searched RNS messages to find it's ex-dividend when nobody had it listed. So this kind of information can be a bit hit and miss sometimes.

There used to be a lot of scope for dividend plays a few years ago but I'm not sure of the attraction now.