Legal & General Share News (LGEN)

From an investor perspective, there was an awful lot to like about Legal & General's results this time round. The company comfortably beat consensus forecasts on virtually every metric you'd care to look at, returning a pre-tax profit of £537m (against last time's £143m loss) and hiking the dividend by 20 per cent to 1.33p. L&G is cheaper than its main quoted rivals and offers more security and strategic coherence. In fact, L&G looks, on current form, to be the pick of the sector. The Independent says buy.Taylor Wimpey has kicked off the reporting season for housebuilders in style. It did not merely return to the black, its first-half profit of £19 million was twice as high as analysts had forecast. Taylor Wimpey is a completely different prospect to a year ago. It trades at 21 times KBC's forecast earnings for 2011, a fairly full valuation, but is more geared than its rivals to a recovery, which makes it a decent bet. Buy on weakness, says the Times.Mouchel has had a year to forget. The outsourcing company fought a rearguard action against a hostile takeover by VT Group and now faces the prospect of hefty cuts to its lifeblood ? public sector projects. Its latest update pushed consensus forecasts for the year lower and did little to restore confidence in its prospects. There is no doubt that at a mere 5½ times next year's forecasts, Mouchel is cheap. Yet there appear to be few catalysts for a re-rating of the stock in the short term and plenty of potential for further jitters. Sell, says the Times.Shire delivered a dose of good news with its second-quarter figures yesterday, raising its full-year forecasts as earnings pulled ahead of expectations. However, there are reasons to be cautious. Analysts at Bernstein recently highlighted what they considered low levels of concern about US studies looking into possible heart risks connected to Shire's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drugs. Now, the US Food and Drug Administration, which was due to publish the results of studies into children in August and adults in October, has pushed the reports back to the first quarter of 2011. Though unlikely, there is a small chance of a negative outcome for Shire, which trades on multiples of just under 18 times forecast earnings for 2010, according to Evolution. The Independent thinks the shares are probably fairly valued at present, so hold.TalkTalk's takeover of Tiscali last year catapulted the internet company into second place in the broadband market. TalkTalk added 61,000 new users in the first quarter, stripping out former AOL and Tiscali customers that left, but this pales in comparison to the growth of BT and BSkyB in the same period. Adding mobile to its stable of products could help to shore up its customer base against low-cost providers such as Tesco and O2. The business continues to offer double-digit growth and could yet be attractive to private equity bidders or a trade buyer such as Vodafone. Buy, says the Times.Balmy weather and good sales of its popular pub grub were the name of the game for the pub and brewing group Marston's for the 43 weeks to 31 July. It's not all rosy. Underlying sales fell by 4 per cent in the 43 weeks to 31 July at Marston's pub company, which has 1,671 tenanted and leasehold pubs. But Marston's hopes to improve their performance by moving about 600 on to a new retail agreement which is similar to a franchise contract and should incentivise publicans, compared to just 88 now. Like so many, Marston's is likely to face a constrained consumer in the coming months but the shares, on just nine times 2011 forecast earnings, look inexpensive. Buy, says the Independent.Please note: Digital Look provides a round-up of news, tips and information that is impacting share prices and the market. Digital Look cannot take any responsibility for information provided by third parties. This is for your general information only as not intended to be relied upon by users in making an investment decision or any other decision. Please obtain a copy of the relevant publication and carry out your own research before considering acting on any of this information.