easyJet Share News (EZJ)

LONDON (Alliance News) - UK travel and leisure sector stocks, along with peers across Europe, have fallen Tuesday after the first confirmed case of human-to-human transmission of Ebola in Europe was reported in Spain and concerns grew elsewhere about the outbreak.

A Madrid nurse was confirmed as an Ebola patient after two blood tests came up positive, Spanish media reported. She had treated Manuel Garcia Viejo, who contracted the disease as a medical missionary in Sierra Leone and was airlifted back to Madrid and died September 25.

The Spanish Health Ministry called an urgent meeting to address the potential crisis.

The news comes as international fears grow about the spread of the disease which had been centred in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone but has now appeared in the US and Spain.

In Washington, President Barack Obama said the US would bolster screening of passengers at airports in Africa and the US to halt Ebola's spread after a traveller from Liberia came down with the haemmorrhagic disease in Texas.

In Uganda, the government mobilized response teams and issued a public health alert after a man died of the Ebola-like Marburg virus, a senior health official said. Eighty people who had been in contact with the victim have been isolated, officials said.

Airline, hotel and leisure stocks are amongst the worst-performing stocks on the FTSE 100, and the FTSE 350 travel and leisure index is the worst-performing sector index, on fears a wider spread of the deadly disease could have a big impact on air travel, hotel stays and cruises. International Consolidated Airlines shares are down 5.8%, EasyJet is down 4.8%, Carnival is down 3.8%, TUI Travel is down 2.2%, Intercontinental Hotels Group is down 2.4%, and FTSE 250-listed Thomas Cook Group is down 3.9%.

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Markets: UK stocks trade firmly in the red, as investors cut back risk positions ahead of Wednesday's Federal Reserve minutes release and Thursday's Bank of England interest rate decision and amid the Ebola spread fears. Mining stocks have come into focus after Rio Tinto, the leading blue-chip gainer, rejected Glencore's merger offer.

US stock futures are pointing lower, with the DJIA, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite all set to open down about 0.4%.

FTSE 100: down 0.6% at 6,524.16
FTSE 250: down 0.9% at 15,141.91
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.5% at 737.34
GBP-USD: down at 1.6059
EUR-USD: down at 1.2599
GOLD: down at USD1,205.70 an ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD92.31 a barrel
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Other Top UK Corporate News
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Mining giant Rio Tinto said it was contacted by Glencore in July regarding a potential merger of the two companies but rejected the proposal, saying it was not in the best interests of Rio Tinto shareholders. Rio Tinto confirmed that no talks are taking place with Glencore at present. "The board's rejection was communicated to Glencore in early August and there has been no further contact between the companies on this matter," Rio Tinto said in a statement.
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Cairn Energy said oil has been discovered in an exploration well offshore Senegal that it has a 40% working interest in, and it thinks it may have significant potential as a standalone discovery as well as raising the potential of a wider block. In a statement, the oil company said preliminary analysis of results from the FAN-1 exploration well showed 29 metres of net oil bearing reservoir in the Cretaceous sandstones. The drilling made no contact with any water in a gross oil bearing interval of more than 500 metres.
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Spirent Communications warned that its revenue started to be hit as trading conditions softened in the latter part of the third quarter, and it expects revenue and operating profit in the fourth quarter to be lower than it had hoped. In a trading update, the company warned that demand levels dipped sharply as a result of merger activity and delays in capital expenditure, as future new technology deployments were being assessed in areas in which Spirent has increased its investments. It said the impact was being most felt in its networks and applications businesses.
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Private equity group TPG has emerged among a group of potential suitors considering a bid for the marketing group behind Tesco's Clubcard loyalty scheme, Sky News reported. The buyout firm is understood to have made an approach to Tesco over acquiring Dunhumby, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the supermarket group, in a deal that would be worth over GBP2 billion, Sky News said. Tesco is believed to be considering its ownership of Dunhumby amid a wider review of its business being overseen by new Chief Executive Dave Lewis.
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A fifth executive is understood to have been suspended by Tesco over the supermarket group's overstatement of its first-half profits, Sky News reported. Kevin Grace, the group commercial director, is understood to be the latest executive suspended, Sky News said. The company suspended four executives in September, including UK Managing Director Chris Bush and UK Finance Director Carl Rogberg, after it said it had overstated its profit guidance for the first half by GBP250 million.
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Virgin Atlantic Airways is to stop running its Little Red domestic service in the UK next year, the BBC reported on Monday. Flights operated by Little Red, launched in 2013 in an attempt to challenge British Airways, part of International Consolidated Airlines Group, between London and Manchester will stop in March, with flights to Edinburgh and Aberdeen to end in September 2015.
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Technical products group Diploma said it has struck a deal to buy 80% of Technopath Distribution for an undisclosed sum. Diploma said the deal also includes put and call options allowing the company to acquire the remaining 20% of the company over the next five years. Diploma said it expects the deal to be immediately earnings accretive.
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Carillion said the British government has announced that it will be the first company to benefit from a new facility designed to boost UK exports, and it has secured a GBP75 million deal with the support of the scheme to deliver some of the Dubai World Trade Centre District development.
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Gamma Communications said it will list on AIM on Friday, as it priced a placing of 44.1 million shares at 187 pence a share. In a statement, the company said the placing has raised about GBP82.6 million for the selling shareholders, or GBP79.9 million net of costs, and the number of shares placed are about half of those that will be in issue when it lists. It expects to have an initial market capitalisation of about GBP165.2 million when it lists based on the placing price. It didn't identify the selling shareholders.
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AIM Movers
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ITM Power shares are higher after it said it now has GBP6.8 million of projects under contract, an increase since the end of July, and a further GBP1.2 million of new projects subject to final negotiation. ITM Power had GBP6.6 million of project under contract at the end of July and GBP5.1 million under contract at the end of April. SYNETY is doing well after it expressed confidence for its future, citing its growing sales pipeline and the scale of its opportunity in the US, as its annual recurring revenue more than doubled in the nine months to end-September. LPA Group is up after its LPA Excil Electronics subsidiary won two deals worth a combined GBP3.3 million to supply LED based lighting on two major rail vehicle projects in the Middle East and Australia, which aren't included in the GBP18.5 million of group orders received in the year to end-September. Ultrasis has lost more than two-thirds of its value after it said it will cancel its AIM listing on the request of a substantial shareholder with whom they have loan facilities, and said Non-Executive Chairman Gerald Malone will depart. Orsu Metals is down after it agreed a one week extension for the second non-refundable payment of USD100,000 which it did not receive as planned on October 4 from David-Invest LLP and David Way Ltd under the Akdjol and Tokhtazan gold exploration licenses exclusivity agreement. Tricorn Group is another faller after it warned that its first-half revenue will be down on the year and its pretax loss won't narrow by as much as it had hoped as the performance of its US transportation business has lagged behind expectations and China growth was slower than hoped due to product launch delays. Intercede Group is down after it said that while it's optimistic of meeting full year expectations, its performance will be dependent on the timing of the receipt of orders. Intercede said its smart card-related identity business is strong, but the order book for the unit will be subject to the timing of a relatively small number of big orders and seasonal variations primarily due to the US government fiscal year.
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Top Economics And General
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UK industrial output remained flat in August from July, data from the Office for National Statistics showed. That follows a 0.4% rise in July. The month-on-month increase in manufacturing slowed to 0.1% from 0.3% a month ago. Both industrial and manufacturing growth figures came in line with expectations. On a yearly basis, industrial production increased 2.5%, faster than the 2.2% rise in July. It was forecast to grow by 2.6%. At the same time, manufacturing advanced 3.9% following July's 3.5% rise. Economists had forecast growth to slow moderately to 3.4%.
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German industrial production dropped in August at its fastest pace since the height of the global financial crisis in early 2009, adding to signs that Europe's biggest economy could be facing a slowdown. Output contracted by a more-than-forecast 4% from July, when it had gained 1.6% on the previous month, the Ministry of Economics said. Analysts surveyed by dpa-AFX had predicted a 1.5% drop. "The trend is down," said Commerzbank economist Ralph Solveen. "At best, the German economy probably stagnated in the third quarter."
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The Bank of Japan kept its monetary policy unchanged at its October meeting as widely expected by economists. The bank maintained its pledge to increase the monetary base at an annual pace of about JPY60-70 trillion. The bank repeated that it will purchase Japanese government bonds so that their outstanding amount will rise at an annual pace of about JPY50 trillion and to purchase exchange-traded funds and Japan real estate investment trusts to increase at an annual pace of around JPY1 trillion and JPY30 billion, respectively. The bank said the Japan economy has continued to recover moderately as a trend, although some weakness particularly on the production side has been observed due mainly to the effects of the subsequent decline in demand following sales tax hike.
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Kurdish forces were fighting desperate street battles in their holdout of Kobane along the Turkish border Monday after Islamic State jihadists forced their way into the town, a local official told dpa. The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) evacuated the last civilians, including local officials, to the Turkish border, said Mustafa Bali, head of the semi-official local Free Media Union. The YPG was fighting from house to house against the advancing jihadists, who had broken into the east of the town using tanks and car bombs, Bali said, adding that a few civilians had refused to leave.
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Hong Kong police arrested five people suspected of having ties to the computer hacking group Anonymous that declared an online war against authorities in the wake of democracy protests. The alleged cyber pirates, aged between 13 and 39, were held in connection with recent hacking attacks against the website of the semi-autonomous territory's government, police said. Police senior superintendent Hui Chun-tak said the suspects were accused of "accessing a computer with criminal or dishonest intent." The government said its website had suffered from cyber-attacks.
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Afternoon Watchlist (all times British Summer Time)

13:55 US Redbook index
15:00 US IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism
15:00 UK NIESR GDP Estimate
17:20 US Fed Minneapolis's Narayana Kocherlakota speech
18:00 US 3-Year Note Auction
19:00 US Fed's William Dudley speech
20:00 US Consumer Credit Change
21:30 US Former Fed's Bernanke speech
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Wednesday's Key UK Corporate Events

Baillie Gifford Japan Trust - Full Year Results
FirstGroup - Trading statement
Marston's - Trading statement
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Wednesday's Key Economic Events (all times British Summer Time)

00:01 UK BRC Shop Price Index
00:50 Japan Trade Balance
00:50 Japan Current Account
02:45 China HSBC China Services PMI
03:00 China NBS Press Conference
06:00 Japan BoJ Monthly Economic Survey
12:00 US MBA Mortgage Applications
15:30 US EIA Crude Oil Stocks change
18:00 US 10-Year Note Auction
19:00 US FOMC Minutes
21:30 US Former Fed's Bernanke speech
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