A Brief Look At The Week Ahead

With the end of the summer holiday season in sight, there is a flurry of activity slated for the City this coming week. Casting its shadow over activity will be the monthly meeting of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee on Thursday. Most pundits anticipate that interest rates will remain unchanged, despite the uncertainty caused by recent rises in the price of oil. On Wednesday the changes to the FTSE100 to take effect from 19th September will be announced. Recently floated PartyGaming will be added and Cairn Energy should return to the top table, depending on share price movements in the next few days. Emap and Hays are the two most likely candidates for demotion. PartyGaming releases its maiden interim results as a public company on Tuesday. Analysts forecast strong results, but will be interested in how many new active players have signed up. The company is also rumoured to be ready to challenge SportingBet in the fight for Empire Online, so news on that will be expected. Staying with gambling, William Hill is due to report numbers on Monday. Results will reveal how traditional gambling businesses are handling the pressure from their online rivals. Analysts are expecting trading to have improved after a poor start to the year. ITV releases its interim results on Wednesday. The focus will be on how it is coping with the reportedly weakening TV advertising market. Supermarket group Somerfield, still hoping to be taken over, provides a trading update on Friday, with sales expected to come in slightly down. There is plenty of action in the construction sector this week, with building supplier Travis Perkins reporting on Monday. It issued a warning in July that sales were struggling due to a slowing in the home-renovation market. George Wimpey, the UK's biggest homebuilder, is expected to report poor results on Wednesday after flagging weaker H1 earnings in July. Taylor Woodrow is forecast to fare better on Tuesday, helped by good growth at its US business. Yet another housebuilder, Wilson Bowden, reports on Wednesday and is expected to show that lower demand and lower prices have taken their toll. Other BB favourites reporting this week include Monstermob, Premier Foods, BAE Systems, UK Coal and Retail Decisions. Remember that the US markets are closed on Monday for the Labor Day holiday. So, it really is a packed agenda for the next few days. I hope you are all suitably refreshed after the weekend. There is money to be made out there! Greystone (Greystone is Alan English, City Editor at MoneyAM.)

AFX UK at a glance share guide - weekend

MARKETS
FTSE 100 5,326.8 down 1.7
FTSE 250 7,792.3 down 6.2 (highest ever level)
DJIA 10,447.37 down 12.26
Nasdaq Comp 2,141.07 down 6.83
S&P 1,218.02 down 3.57
Gold 444.05 usd (444.45 usd)
Oil - Brent Oct 66.06 usd (67.72 usd)

WEEKEND PRESS
* Katrina: an economic blow worse than 9/11, top analysts warn - The Business
* Catastrophic destruction created by Hurricane Katrina will force US petrol prices to rise by another 35 pct within days, according to Barclays Capital - Sunday Telegraph
* Oil giants ROYAL DUTCH SHELL and BP spending millions upgrading their petrol pumps and station forecourts to allow them to charge higher prices - Sunday Times
* Oil giant BP set for 5 bln stg Hurricane boost; soaring crude price will bring cash bonanza for company and swell government coffers - Sunday Express
* Air fares to rise after Katrina creates a jet-fuel shortage - Independent on Sunday
*British and American insurers face 40 bln usd claims after Katrina; huge premium hike for British firms; petrol price to hit 1 stg a litre this week -Observer
*Fix this goddam crisis,' Bush told; New Orleans mayor castigates government; anger at failure to help Katrina's stranded victims; Louisiana senator says 10,000 could have died - Saturday FT
* Office of Fair Trading probes 'shoddy work' by housebuilders; exercise at a preliminary stage but is expected to lead to a full-blown investigation - Observer
* Karen Jones, the woman who built Spirit Group into one of Britain's biggest pub operators, at war with some of the company's private-equity backers over its future - Sunday Times
* SPORTINGBET in talks with EMPIRE ONLINE, which provides marketing services for the online gambling industry, about a 791 mln stg merger - Saturday FT
* PARTYGAMING considering a rival bid for EMPIRE ONLINE, the AIM-listed online betting firm which has received a potential 791 mln stg takeover offer from SPORTINGBET - Sunday Telegraph
* INTERCONTINENTAL HOTELS to trigger yet another bumper payout for shareholders by selling a swathe of hotels across Europe, including the Carlton-Cannes in the south of France; the hotels are worth around 500 mln stg - Independent on Sunday
* Carlyle Group emerges as favourite to acquire the 1.5 bln stg European soft-drinks business CADBURY SCHWEPPES put up for sale last week - Sunday Express
* BBC and ITV explore launch of free satellite service - Sunday Telegraph
* Trading price for futures of extra-virgin olive oil rose 7 pct to hit a new high of 3,440 eur (2,340 stg) a tonne last week following research showing it has similar anti-inflammatory properties to Ibuprofen - Observer
* WILLIAM MORRISON SUPERMARKETS facing almost certain crippling strike action as the retailer controversially confirms to its workforce that it is likely to close one or more of its distribution centres - Sunday Telegraph
* Gazprom planning a flotation on the New York Stock Exchange that would value the Russian gas giant at 300 bln usd (170 bln stg, and challenge Exxon Mobil's title as the world's largest international oil and gas company - The Business
* Troubled DIY chain B&Q will cut nearly a third of its head office workforce this week only days before an expected warning by its parent company KINGFISHER that profits will slump 50 mln stg below forecasts - Mail on Sunday
* DIXONS set to report a haemorrhaging of sales at its UK businesses this week as it suffers from falling prices and poor retail conditions - Independent on Sunday
* Merger talks between IMPERIAL TOBACCO and its Franco-Spanish rival Altadis aborted because the British company could not guarantee the future of thousands of French and Spanish jobs - Sunday Times
* Sir Gerry Robinson's attempt to buy RENTOKIL INITIAL being held up by the support services company's 286.5 mln stg pension fund deficit - Sunday Express
* Leading authors and publishers attempting to block HMV from bidding for rival bookseller OTTAKAR'S - Sunday Times
* E.ON, the German power giant which owns PowerGen in the UK, believed to have hired Lazard to advise on a potential bid for SCOTTISH POWER - Mail on Sunday
* Industrial giant ThyssenKrupp emerges as the favourite to buy BAE SYSTEMS' German-based naval electronics company Atlas Elektronik for about 200 mln stg - Mail on Sunday
* Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's ebullient chief executive, threatened to "kill" Google and "bury" its chief executive during a foul-mouthed tirade against the internet search engine giant, according to court documents - Sunday Telegraph
* American parcels giant UPS working with Goldman Sachs to explore whether it should enter the fray for EXEL, potentially triggering a bid battle for the British supply chain company; analysts say UPS would be able to outbid Deutsche Post if it chose to bid - Saturday Telegraph
* A consortium of media bidders is circling AEGIS this weekend ahead of making a break-up bid for the 1.3 bln stg media buying and market research group - The Business
* Omnicom, the world's largest advertising group, made a takeover approach to AEGIS towards the end of 2004, The Sunday Telegraph has discovered
* A 45 mln stg takeover bid for Premiership club West Ham could be launched as early as this week by Badri Patarkatsishvili, owner of Georgian champions Dinamo Tbilisi - Sunday Express
* Banker Lord Rothschild emerges as the man behind a consortium in discussions with BSKYB chief executive James Murdoch to bid for Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One motor-racing business - The Business
* Shares in OLD MUTUAL fall more than 2 pct as institutional investors unhappy with the Anglo-South African financial group's bid for Skandia say that they could stymie the offer by heavy selling - Saturday Times
* BP executives on a global roadshow, travelling as far as Tokyo to offer the oil major's 33 pct stake in the UK portion of the Statfjord field, worth as much as 100 mln usd - The Business
* French oil major Total raises its bid for Canadian oil sands producer Deer Creek Energy by 25 pct to 1.4 bln usd in a move to ward off a mystery competitor - The Business
* Microsoft teams up with Orange to try to gain control of the digital music business, which the software giant believes could be worth hundreds of billions of pounds a year - The Business
* MISYS, the sofware and services group, waters down proposals to offer generous "retention" bonuses to two top executives less than two weeks before a shareholder vote on the controversial plan - Saturday FT
* Monthly figures from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG on Tuesday expected to show like-for-like sales in negative territory, with a decline of about 1 pct in August compared with a year ago; not even the warm weather encouraged consumers onto the high street; housing, DIY and home furnishings suffered - The Business
* Ofcom to investigate CABLE & WIRELESS's internet service provider, Bulldog; Ofcom says it has opened an inquiry into the way Bulldog bills its customers and its complaints-handling procedures
* DC Thomson emerges as a potential challenger to TRINITY MIRROR's 50.5 mln stg agreed bid for HOTGROUP; DC Thomson has built up a 3.75 pct stake in the online recruitment company in recent days and confirmed yesterday it has bought 500,000 shares at 20 pence - below Trinity Mirror's agreed offer price of 20-1/4 pence - Saturday Times
* DC Thomson preparing a counterbid of around 23 pence a share for HOTGROUP, according to City sources - Observer
* Rents rose by 3.8 pct in the 12 months to July, according to the Office for National Statistics, while annual house price inflation fell to 2.6 pct in July and to 2.3 pct in August, according to Nationwide, the largest building society
* Talks to end the European Union's textiles stand-off with Beijing collapse, leaving 75 mln garments in storage and a cloud over Monday's EU-China summit - Saturday FT
* ROLLS-ROYCE facing prospect of a large-scale strike at its second-biggest UK factory after Amicus says it is preparing to ballot 800 workers at the engine maker's Bristol site - Saturday FT
* Farmers For Action plans to bring chaos to English milk supplies this morning by blockading ROBERT WISEMAN distribution centres; the action is in protest over decreasing prices paid to dairy farmers for milk - Observer
* RTL, owner of the television channel Five, submits a bid for Flextech that is thought to value the rival broadcaster at between 800 mln stg and 1 bln - Saturday Times
* RTL mulls offer for Flextech, the digital TV operator put up for sale by TELEWEST - Saturday Independent
* Property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz favourite to buy SOMERFIELD, according to City sources - Observer
* CLIPPER VENTURES secures a multi-million-pound sponsorshp deal from Danish window manufacturer Velux for its Five Oceans race - Sunday Telegraph
* CERES POWER, the AIM-listed fuel cell company, expected to announce a joint venture with BOC within the next few days - Sunday Telegraph

SATURDAY PRESS COMMENT
FT
THE LEX COLUMN comments on RANK GROUP (bull case rests chiefly on disposing of Deluxe at a reasonable price in a reasonable time-frame and then distributing the proceeds to shareholders), New CEOs (only once a power base is sturdy and knowledge and information channels honed, should tough financial decisions - particularly deals - be tackled; by then, paranoia may be the CEO's only true friend), Mid-cap stocks (while dealmakers will probably remain focused on mid-caps, their appetite may be insufficient to overcome the valuation premium and the worsening economic backdrop), US refining (the time to worry will be when investors start believing that super-high refining margins are here forever)- RANK GROUP (modestly priced, although potential buyers may want to wait until there is more clarity on Deluxe), FLOORS 2 GO (look overvalued) - Weekend share watch: DANA PETROLEUM (merger and acquisition activity is picking up in the North Sea oil business and Dana is a likely target), TT ELECTRONICS (p/e of about 12 is in line with the rest of the sector), GOODWIN (no analyst coverage, and limited liquidity, could act as a barrier to investors wanting to get in on Goodwin's success) - LONDON MARKET: BOC (talk of a deal with German rival Linde), SCOTTISH POWER (supposedly a target for E.ON) - ANALYST WATCH: SCOTTISH POWER (looking lithe and lean after US sale; the utility now appears cheap compared with the rest of the sector, says Rebecca Bream - MONEY & BUSINESS p.23)

Telegraph
THE MARKET: AVIS EUROPE (speculation of sector consolidation), VIROTEC INTERNATIONAL (Nigel Wray rumoured to have taken a stake) - SATURDAY QUESTOR: Construction has a strong allure for foreign suitors; SMALL CAP VALUES: FAROE PETROLEUM (the lucky, speculative investor can make a killing), MEARS (worth a look), AXON track record speaks volumes)

Express
MARKET REPORT: BOC (speculation that BASF is mulling over a 13 stg-a-share offer; also seen as merger target for Linde), VIROTEC INTERNATIONAL (tales it is about to announce a deal with a major UK water company), ALPHAMERIC (talk of substantial contract wins), HICHENS HARRISON (speculation it is close to acquiring the Ellis private client business of rival SEYMOUR PIERCE)

Guardian
Market forces: XSTRATA (talk it has approached ASIA ENERGY's largest shareholder, CAMBRIAN MINING, with an offer for its 23 pct holding), BOC (rumours that BASF is set to make a 1,330 pence-a-share bid), LLOYDS TSB (talk it is in the sights of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria), LLOYDS TSB (Toscafund increase holding to nearly 14 pct), HOTGROUP (DC Thomson acquires 500,000 shares at 20 pence; traders believe Thomson would not have paid 20 pence a share unless it was planning a (counter) bid or thought a third party would enter the fray)

Mail
MARKET REPORT: LLOYDS TSB (dealers again hear that a major US bank, possibly Wells Fargo, has built up a small, undisclosed stake prior to launching a cash bid), SCOTTISH POWER (if E.ON pounces, word is SP will then seek a defensive merger with SCOTTISH & SOUTHERN ENERGY), PARTYGAMING (Footsie promotion due on Wednesday; HAYS expected to be relegated), CAIRN ENERGY (could take place of EMAP in Footsie), SEYMOUR PIERCE and Cannacord Capital (both to start trading in shop stocks next week) - INVESTMENT EXTRA: Brian O'Connor comments on OILEXCO (not a risk-free share, don't chase it hard; set a stop-loss at 130 pence and sell if it gets there; but with plenty of drilling to come, oil prices sky high and production only a year off, Oilexco should have further upside); BIOPROJECTS INTERNATIONAL (US websites reveal that its 47 pct-held US investment Vialogy signed an agreement this week with another US group, Viaspace, to develop a long-range sensor which is hoped to detect explosives carried by suicide bombers)

Independent
NO PAIN, NO GAIN: Derek Pain comments on FRANCHISE INVESTMENT STRATEGIES (I regard FIS as a fascinating investment and welcome the portfolio's indirect involvement via MYHOME INTERNATIONAL; supporting the FIS venture is St HELEN's CAPITAL, a small finance house that is achieving a reputation as a shrewd Ofex participant; it plans to get more involved in AIM and six of its client companies are in various stages of preparing to join the junior market) - MARKET REPORT: GEORGE WIMPEY (talk of move by PERSIMMON to buy its rival), SOMERFIELD (word that Apax Parners-led consortium will bid 225 pence-a-share next week), JARVIS (worries about a large stock overhang)

Times
STOCK MARKETS - LARGER CAPITALISATION SHARES: LLOYDS TSB (suggestion that a US predator, such as Bank of America, may be preparing to make a move); SMALLER CAPITALISATION SHARES: CLIPPER VENTURES (speculation it will sign a big corporate sponsorship deal early next week)

SUNDAY PRESS
The Business
INSIDE THE MARKET - GROWTH INVESTOR: ULTRA ELECTRONICS (still trades on reasonable valuations); MID-CAP INVESTOR: INTERTEK (trading on 19 times forecast earnings for 2005; that is high, although earnings are expected to grow by one-fifth in 2006); AIM INVESTOR: WILLIAM RANSOM (a clear buy) - BENCHMARK: Ian Watson comments on Wal-Mart (should stop moaning about TESCO), Skype (may prove irresistible to Bill Gates), Europe's takeover boom (French government, true to form, is planning to throw up the barricades to protect what it describes as its "strategic" industrial sectors from foreign takeovers; no doubt producers of frogs' legs, steak tartare and yoghurt will be on the list as, apparently, are casinos and probably every French sector in which a foreign company might want to bid; you couldn't make it up)

Mail on Sunday
COMPANIES AND MARKETS: CADBURY SCHWEPPES (private equity firms front runners in the 1 bln stg auction of Cadbury's continental European beverages business), ITV (understood to have tabled an offer for Flextech), ZI MEDICAL (will try to woo the major shareholder (Volvere) in safety syringe maker NMT tomorrow ahead of a possible formal share offer for the business), LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE (will announce tomorrow that it is extending its controversial electronic trading system SETSmm to 150 more company shares) - MIDAS: MCBRIDE (with the shares at their current level, they represent good value)

Sunday Telegraph
BUSINESS COMMENT: Grant Ringshaw, Deputy City Editor, explains why a shake-up is looming for UK life insurers (BUSINESS p.3) - Equity View - BLUE CHIP VALUES: OLD MUTUAL (buy), SERCO (hold on); Look who's trading: INCHCAPE (finance director sells stock; investors should hold the shares); SMALLCAP COMMENT: JESSOPS (sell), JAMES FISHER (should have further to go), INTERACTIVE PROSPECT TARGETING (worth a punt), CHACO RESOURCES (given the high oil price, any good news is likely to boost Chaco's share price; not for widows and orphans) - THE NUMBERS GAME: BUNZL (Tony Jackson says he will wait until the management question is resolved)

Observer
THROG STREET: Heather Connon comments on bid fever, BAE SYSTEMS (aircraft carriers give BAE lift-off)

Sunday Times
JUDGMENT DAY: SHOULD YOU BUY SHARES IN BUNZL Andy Brough, fund manager at Schroders, says buy below 530 pence, and Tim Steer, fund manager at New Star, says buy - INSIDE THE CITY: OLD MUTUAL (Friday's (share price) wobble had more to do with arbitrageurs taking profits than any genuine opposition to the (Skandia) deal, BPB/Saint-Gobain (BPB chairman and chief executive should fight their corner hard, and when the price is right, say 750 pence a share, make this friendliest of hostile bids even friendlier) - DIRECTORS' DEALS: VODAFONE (deputy chief executive sells more than 1.1 mln shares at nearly 152 pence each); MARKS & SPENCER (three executive directors buy stock)

Thanks GS,

Lots there to get our teeth Into this week.

Good morning traders!

In Asia today, the Hang Seng closed its morning session down 13.38 points at 15,208.51 whilst the Nikkei was trading up 9.36 points at 12,609.36 at its midpoint of the day.

Early broker notes :-

THUS UPGRADED TO 'IN-LINE' VS 'UNDERPERFROM' AT GOLDMAN SACHS

RIO TINTO AND BHP BILLITON CUT TO 'HOLD' FROM 'BUY' BY CITIGROUP SMITH BARNEY

XSTRATA UPGRADED TO 'BUY' FROM 'HOLD' BY CITIGROUP SMITH BARNEY

Looks like a busy week ahead...........

Happy trading!

G.

MARKET EXPECTATIONS

William Hill six months to June pretax profit 107.2m vs 118.4m

IMI six months to June pretax profit before exceptionals and goodwill 79m-81m vs 74.4m; interim dividend 6.6p vs 6.3p

Intertek. Baird Equities forecasts six months to June pretax profit 40m vs 37.9m; interim dividend 3.7p, up 10%

Taylor Nelson Sofres six months to June pretax profit under IFRS 32.9m vs 32.4m

Travis Perkins six months to June pretax profit under IFRS 110m-113m vs 95.3m; interim dividend 10.5p vs 9.5p

Vitec Group. Arbuthnot forecasts six months to June pretax profit 7.2m vs 6.8m; interim dividend 5p vs 6.1p

Robert Walters. Baird Equities forecasts six months to June pretax profit 4m vs 3.4m; interim dividend 1.05p, unchanged

Morning all.

Morning all.

End of day market wrap