S&P Futures

Diageo spirits group returned to profit with a 2% profit rise to 1.297 billion pounds and said it expected current trends to continue, despite an uneven recovery in Europe and north American markets was clouded by higher pension costs and a weak U.S. dollar.

Royal Bank of Scotland reported annual profit up 29 percent to 6.16 billion pounds from 4.76 billion a year earlier above expectations, on strong revenue growth.

WS Atkins expects its profits for the year to end-March 2004 to be "somewhat ahead" of the market consensus. "The outlook in all Atkins principal markets remains good," the company said in a trading statement

Hanson building materials posted profits of 319.7 million pounds down from 350.3 million pounds but ahead of analysts expectations of 311.9 million. This was after bad weather delayed projects in the United States where it earns about half of its revenues pounds Reed-Elsevier publisher profit rose 9% to 1.01 billion pounds from 927 million with analyst expectations of 976.5 million to1.03 billion pounds and said growth would be in the mid-to-high single digit percentage range this year.

Morgan Crucible engineer said it was raising 54 million pounds in a rights issue and would use the money to fund its recently announced "profit improvement programme".

Diageo (H1), Hanson (F) Royal Bank of Scotland (F) Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (F), Morgan Sindall (F), BHP Billiton (I), Reed Elsevier (F) UK RICS Jan house price survey (0030 )

Hewlett-Packard Q1, Target Q4, Genzyme Q4, Nordstrom Q4, PG&E Q4, Radioshack Q4, Wal-Mart Stores Q4, The Williams Companies Q4, Nextel Comms Q4, Univision Comms Q4, Ciena Q1, FirstEnergy  Q4, King Pharma Q4, Qwest Comms Q4

1.30pm  Core PPI, 1.30pm  Initial Claims

3.00pm  Leading Indicators , 5.00pm  Philadelphia Fed

Bilfinger Berger(F) Hugo Boss (I) DaimlerChrysler (F) SCM Microsystems (F)

TotalFinaElf (F)

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