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News Headlines:    US: Strength in technology pushing the broader market to a slightly higher close.

Big Food Group (Iceland) and Booker wholesale business, says it has made a satisfactory start to the year with sales trends improving though still down year-on-year. Overall sales were down an unadjusted 1.2 percent leading to a decline in group like-for-like sales of 0.5 percent compared with a 2.8 percent fall the previous quarter

Man Group says its assets under management had risen to over $30 billion from $26.7 billion on March 31. They said Man Financial, "also continues to perform well due to active markets and the continued benefits we are seeing from the integration of GNI".

Thus says it is comfortable with market expectations for the year despite a cautious general economic outlook

Diageo says the Iraq war and outbreak of the deadly SARS virus hit demand for its spirits and that full-year organic sales and volume growth will not improve on the first half. Profits up 6% on the year

Cobham Aerospace and defence engineer says it plans to raise about 105 million pounds in new shares to ease its debt load after a string of acquisitions.

Calendar All GMT	United Kingdom (F)inals (I)nterim	United States (Click Flag)	Europe & World
Wed 9th	Reg Vardy (F), Big Food Group Q1 Trading Statement Diageo Trading Statement 3i Group AGM, Man Group AGM, ThGroup AGM Liontrt Asset Management AGM Murray Vct 4 AGM, Northern Petroleum AGM Christian Salvesen AGM09.30  May Non-EU Trade balance -1.5bn exp. Treasury chief economist Ed Balls speaks on economy to Merrill Lynch conference Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee meeting	Yahoo (Q2) 15.00 May Wholesale Inventories 0.2% exp. :	Europe: SAAB (Q2)
	Babcock International (1.85), Burtonwood Breweries (6.5), Charles Stanley (3.5), Dairy Crest (11.3), De La Rue (9.2), East Surrey Holdings (9.3), G(16.4), GWR Group (3.5), Glenmorangie A (14.8), Glenmorangie B (7.4), Heiton Group (EUR 0.082), Holidaybreak (6), Imperial Tobacco (12), Parkman Group (1.1), Pennon Group (26.5), Pillar Property (5.7), Renold (3), SABMiller (0.185), Tate & Lyle (12.8), Umeco (8.5), Xansa (2.16)
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