A Brief Look At The Week Ahead

In a week bereft of corporate results reporting, focus is likely to settle on the interest rate decision making later in the week. Most economists are predicting that Mervyn King will raise interest rates again at the meeting of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee on Thursday. An increase, which would bring the base lending rate to 5.5%, would come on the heels of the 10th anniversary of the formation of the MPC. easyJet should be able to shake off some of its traditional weakness at the half year, with its interim numbers on Wednesday. The low-cost airline has been opening new routes and wading into new ancillary businesses, and stockbroker Charles Stanley expects a loss of 18m, rather than the 40m it lost in the same period last year. Sales are also expected to have grown by 15%. Also on Wednesday, InterContinental Hotels are predicted to do well. At its Q1 results, pre-tax profits are tipped to be just above the 40.3m earnt at the same time last year. Yet speculation over the company's fate refuses to die down. The Barclay Brothers have built up an 8.2% stake and rumours of private equity or property-investor interest persist. CEO, Andrew Coslett, may be able to keep investors' minds off those issues by giving a glimpse of progress, if any, on the possible disposal of the last 25 hotels it owns. The value of the properties is around 1bn, and a sale would probably mean some of that cash flowing back to shareholders. Sage, the accounting software group, should make a respectable showing with its interims on the same day. Deutsche Bank is expecting pre-tax profits of 122m, driven by strong organic growth and an increased contribution from its healthcare business. Sage bought Emdeon last year, which forms the core of that unit. Private equity house, 3i, should have plenty to say on Thursday. Riding the wave that has brought unprecedented returns to the global buyout industry, CEO, Philip Yea, is expected to unveil another storming set of numbers at the group's annual results. 3i's 2005 numbers were a record, and these should be even better. Amongst others in the spotlight this week will be Randgold Resources on Tuesday; Dimension Data and N Brown on Wednesday and Babcock International and International Power on Thursday. Good hunting! Greystone Thanks, as always to Digger and Kyoto for their invaluable input to the Traders Thread (Greystone is Alan English, City Editor at MoneyAM.)

Morning all. Friday's market reports:

Telegraph
Telegraph (Bloomberg summary)
The Times
FT
The Guardian
The Independent
This is Money

Morrisons is next buyout target
Wall Street sequel 'to be made'
Does Brown have a trick up his sleeve?

NIKKEI	AUSTRALIA	SHANGHAI	HANG SENG

Good morning traders!

In the US last night, the Dow rose 48.35 to 13,312.97, while the S&P500 rose 3.86
to 1,509.48 and the Nasdaq fell 1.20 to 2,570.95.

In Asia today, the Hang Seng ended the morning down 95.39 points at 20,801,25,
and the Nikkei reached the midpoint down 21.83 points at 17,648.00.

New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in June, was down six cents at $61.41 per barrel from $61.47 in US trading overnight.

Happy trading!

G.

OUTLOOK - UK companies results for 2 weeks to May 18OUTLOOK Standard Life Q1 total sales seen up 31 pctSTOCKWATCH - China's Chalco higher after Alcoa offers 27 bln usd for Alcan

Asian economic and corporate news summaryAsian markets summary

The Tuesday Press Roundup

ANTO upgraded to neutral from underweight - JP Morgan
AU. reiterated buy - target 900 from 800 - Goldman Sachs
BARC reiterated outperform - Cazenove
BA. reiterated overweight - JP Morgan
BA. reiterated overweight - Morgan Stanley
BAT reiterated sell - JP Morgan
PSON reiterated neutral - Merrill Lynch
REL sell - Goldman Sachs
RTR downgraded to equal-weight from overweight - target 550 - Lehman Brothers

Miners - Deutsche Bank

London shares outlook - Firmer; fresh M&A moves tempered by interest rate fears

Thomson Financial UK at a glance share guideTokyo shares close slightly lower on profit-taking

STOCKWATCH Antofagasta, Kazakhmys upgraded by JP Morgan in European mining note

STOCKWATCH Reuters cut to 'neutral' at Credit Suisse, 'hold' at Deutsche Bank

Australian shares close lower on profit taking; Qantas falls

STOCKWATCH Severn Trent cut to 'neutral' from 'buy' by Merrill Lynch

Australian shares close lower on profit taking; Qantas falls - UPDATE

First Day of DealingsUK smallcap opening - William Sinclair buoyed by strong Easter sales

STOCKWATCH Standard Life flat after forecast-beating Q1

Analysis selection

CEN price 6.675p

About 6 times the usual last Friday not seing such volume for over 2 month

Have move up from a flat bottom recently after being at this level for 2 month

Last Friday news of an Independent publication which supports the profile of CeNeS phase II compound. It is considered in the medical world as highly significan

It plans to test the drug in further phase II trials in cancer pain and neuropathic pain later in the year

UPS (Added by Master RSI on Mon 07 May 11:04 pm)

IOT - Mid 47.75p
Reason - Did not managed to break 50p last week, but news today from Australia is that IBA is trying to merged/takeover ISOFT. If the merger proceeded, it would produce the world's fourth largest healthcare information technology company, with large saving from combining the two

UK smallcap opening - ID Data benefits from pre paid card acquisitionTokyo shares close slightly lower on profit-taking - UPDATE