S&P Futures

U.S. stocks broke a five-session winning streak Wednesday, closing a little lower on profit taking in technology at the start of the reporting period for third-quarter earnings.

Amersham The Wall Street Journal said General Electric has made an overture to the healthcare firm

Royal Bank of Scotland, Britain's second-biggest bank said it had agreed to buy private bank Bank von Ernst & Cie AG from German parent Bayerische Hypo-und Vereinsbank

Barclays announces reorganisation. Its finance director John Varley becomes CEO in December 2004, when the incumbent, Matthew Barrett, will become chairman. Varley would become deputy chief executive on January 1 when Naguib Kheraj, currently CEO of Barclays Private Clients becomeS finance director.

BAA airports operator, said it handled 12.5 million passengers up 2.6 percent on the same month last year. Heathrow had passenger growth for the second consecutive month as long-haul traffic continued to improve.

Mitchells & Butlers said it planned to raise 1.9 billion pounds by securitising its pubs and restaurants and would return 500 million pounds of that amount to shareholders.

DFS Furniture, says its annual profits were up 5.2 percent, in line with forecasts, but recent orders have been down and the company does not expect much growth this year. Profit was 56.4 million pounds for the year on turnover of 499.1 million pounds.

The Bank of England is widely expected by economists to keep interest rates on hold later on today, but financial markets still think there is a risk the Bank could raise its base rate at this meeting.

United Kingdom Calendar (F)inals (I)nterim	United States  (GMT)	Europe & World (GMT)
Thu 9th Oct BAA Sep Traffic Figures DFS Furniture Group (F) PBT 56.4m exp. Austin Reed (I), Brown & Jackson (I), John David Group (I) 00.01 UK Sep BRC Shop Price Index 09.30 UK Aug World Trade Balance of Payments -3.5bn exp. 09.30 UK Aug New Construction Orders 12.00 UK BOE Rate Announcement	Marriot (Q3), Abbott Labs (Q3) 13.30 US Sep Import Price Index m/m 0.3% exp. 13.30 US Initial Jobless Claims (w/e 4/10) 395k exp.	Carrefour (Q3) 07.00 EMU Aug German Trade Balance E11.2bn exp 07.00 EMU Sep German Final CPI m/m 11.00 EMU Revised 2nd Quarter GDP q/q 0.1% exp. 11.00 EMU Aug German Preliminary Industrial Production m/m 0.9% exp. 11.00 EMU European Commission Publishes 3rd & 4th Quarter GDP Forecast
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