Card Factory Share News (CARD)

(ShareCast News) - Traders were expecting a slightly lower open despite the late gains seen on Wall Street overnight.The top flight index was being called to start the day two points lower from Monday's close of 6,108.71.The main US equity averages ended the session on the up as gains in financials offset sharp drops in the biotechnology space.On Tuesday morning investors were again being called to central bank watch with speeches due out later in the day from the Bank of England's Deputy Governor, Nemat Shafik, and Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart.On Monday, Lockhart said the Federal Open Market Committee could raise the federal funds rate in late October, although there was no operational reason why it couldn't raise it in December.The only thing standing in the way of a rate hike come October was whether or not he and his colleagues had enough time to evaluate the impact of recent international economic concerns and financial volatility on the US economy, Lockhart added.Acting as a backdrop, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal Chinese president Xi Jinping defended the actions undertaken by his government to stop the rout in the country's stockmarkets. They were necessary to "defuse systemic risks," he said.Speaking in London on Monday evening, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney labelled China's economic miracle over the past three decades as "extraordinary", having helped to helped to lift billions of people around the world out of poverty.Nonetheless, the Chinese economy's post-crisis performance has been bolstered by a large build-up of debt, which has more than doubled to reach almost 200% of GDP, Carney added.The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has revised down its 2015 GDP forecast to 6.9% in its summer report, from 7.0% in the spring report, MNI reported.That came alongside a1.0% gain for the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for China in August to 334.4, after increases of 0.9% increase in July and 0.5% in June.As of 07:32 the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Composite Index was trading higher by 0.94% to reach 3,186.26.Meggitt bags EDAC's composites unitEngineering group Meggitt has agreed to acquire the composites division of EDAC from Greenbriar Equity Group and other associated sellers for $340m in cash. Meggitt said the business produces highly-engineered aerospace components for jet engine and airframe applications, with over 85% of revenues in civil aerospace composites. Revenues in 2015 are expected to be $104m and the purchase price, adjusted to exclude the $25m present value of the tax asset acquired with the business, implies a multiple of 12.5x 2016 estimated earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. The transaction will, subject to the completion of standard documentation, be financed by the previously announced debt facilities which are being increased to $600m.Card Factory posted a jump in interim pre-tax profit on the back of strong revenue growth, as it announced a special dividend. For the six months ended 31 July, underlying pre-tax profit rose 72.3% from the same period last year to £25.7m on revenue of £161.4m, up 8%. Group earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose to £32.5m from £30.2m.Dairy Crest said first quarter total sales of it four key brands, Cathedral City, Clover, Country Life and Frylight, were in line with the first quarter of last year and expect to report a similar position for the first half. Cathedral and Frylight continued to perform strongly, growing sales and market share during the period. Clover and Country Life sales fell in a butter and spreads market "that remains challenging". Dairy said cheese, spreads and butters businesses will be weighted to the second half of the year ending 31 March 2016 and that first half profits in these businesses will be behind those of the first half of last year. Our expectations for the full year remain unchanged. This reflects lower cheese costs and an improved performance from our Spreads and butters business in the second half.