Good morning traders!

In Asia today, the Nikkei was recently up 109.22 points at 13,939.14, while the
Hang Seng was up 162.57 points at 22,297.73.

New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for August delivery, dipped
20 cents to $134.35 a barrel. It lost $2.45 to 134.55 on Wednesday at the New
York Mercantile Exchange.

Happy trading!

G.

OUTLOOK DSG International to confirm 31 percent FY profit slumpTFN UK calendar and forecasts for todayThomson Financial Europe AM at a glance share guide: Shares firmer, oil dipsTFN economic and business calendar

London shares outlook - down, after U.S. gains fade; DSG to report lower profit

The Thursday Press Roundup

BROKERWATCH BSkyB downgraded to 'underweight' from 'overweight' at JP Morgan

Morning all. Market reports:

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

America's central bank has held interest rates at 2pc, with concerns about rising inflation outweighing those about slowing economic growth. The US Federal Reserve chose to maintain its base Federal Funds rate for the first time since last summer despite its clear concern over the impact the rising price of goods might have on the wider economy.
US Federal Reserve holds rates held amid fears of rising inflation

America's seemingly never-ending demand for oil appears to be abating as a direct result of the surge in prices.
US oil demand slides

Sales on the high street grew at a "sluggish" pace this month as rising fuel prices forced consumers to tighten their belts, according to a CBI survey yesterday.
CBI survey suggests worse sales on high street than upbeat ONS

Storm clouds were gathering over the High Street today after clothing stores suffered their worst month for quarter of a century.
Worst month in 25 years for clothes shops

The London Stock Exchange has signed a deal with Lehman Brothers to launch an innovative trading platform to cater for large trades between institutions. The platform is aimed at dark liquidity pools, which enable buyers and sellers to trade large blocks of assets anonymously, minimising the impact on the market.
LSE and Lehman to launch platform

NIKKEI 225	AUSTRALIA ASX200	SHANGHAI	HANG SENG

13:30 US GDP Q1 (consensus 1%)
13:30 US GDP Price Index Q1 (consensus 2.6%)
13:30 US Personal Consumption Q1 (consensus 1%)
13:30 US Initial Jobless Claims (consensus 377K)
13:30 US Continuing Jobless Claims (consensus 3210K)
15:00 US Existing Home Sales May (consensus 1.3%)

BROKERWATCH AstraZeneca cut to 'underweight' from 'neutral' at HSBC

Thomson Financial UK at a glance share guide

BROKERWATCH Barclays upped to 'overweight' from 'equal-weight' at Morgan StanleyAustralian shares close higher, led by banks

BROKERWATCH Zodiac, EADS cut to 'sell', BAE Systems upped to 'buy' at SG Sec

BROKERWATCH HBOS upped to 'market perform' at Keefe, Bruyette & WoodsTokyo shares close little changed after crude price drop hits commodity stocks

does anyone have a stock market glossary for words commonly used in RNSs?

eg market perform mean 'won't make/lose money'
overweight mean 'SP likely to fall?'
underweight equal weight underperform etc
Alex

Australian shares close higher, led by banks - UPDATE

UK smallcap opening - Matra Petroleum retreats on Russian legal claimLondon shares open lower after U.S. gains fade

STOCKWATCH DSG International higher on in-line results

Hello Robert,

I'm not sure what you mean regarding overweight = 'SP likely to fall'. Overweight, under-weight, equal-weight, market perform etc. are broker recommendations rather than words you typically see in an RNS. Broker recommendations can shift a share price but when you read their notes they have very diverse interpretations of the terms that they use. It's not atypical to see an underweight recommendation on a company with a price target 10-15% higher than the current price. How can they recommend clients be underweight and yet think there's a 10% profit to be made? The only real answer is that the brokers are often inconsistent.

As far as RNS messages are concerned, I understand that big trading outfits 'parse' RNS messages for keywords and so their automated trading systems 'know' whether an RNS is good or bad almost as soon as it hits the wires. I read somewhere that some of these systems trade on the information. I think traders learn the codewords in RNS messages so a quick scan can tell you whether things are really good or bad in-between the positive spin.

UK smallcap opening - Cobra Bio hard-hit on swing to H1 losses

BROKERWATCH Persimmon keeps 'underperform' at Credit Suisse, target to 270pUK smallcap opening - Slimma clipped by sharp fall in H1 profits