In Asia today, the Hang Seng has ended the morning down 139.21 points at 15,683.43, while in Tokyo , the Nikkei reached the session midpoint down 158.10 points at 15,749.10.

New York's main oil contract, light sweet crude for July delivery, was down 12 cents at $69.74 a barrel from its close of $69.86 in the US last night.

Early broker notes:

AB FOODS UPGRADED TO 'BUY' AT MERRILL LYNCH
PREMIER OIL UPGRADED TO 'BUY' VS 'NEUTRAL' AT MERRILL LYNCH
KINGFISHER UPGRADED TO 'HOLD' VS 'SELL' AT DEUTSCHE BANK

Happy trading!

G.

Morning all. BARC trading statement Q1 today.

From BARC story :-

'The impairments in Barclaycard are even worse than our above consensus estimate,' analysts at Keefe Bruyette & Woods wrote in a note. 'The latter issue will adversely affect sentiment...we expect slight (share price) weakness today.'

End-of-day Market Summary