Results from the big guns reporting this morning have generally been favourable, but the Footsie is still tipped to open a few points lower, with traders reluctant to over commit ahead of today's US mid-term elections, not to mention the big decisions on quantitative easing from the Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve later this week.Beleaguered oil giant BP comfortably beat third quarter profit forecasts though it has had to take an additional $7.7bn charge in respect of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The market had been expecting underlying net income on a replacement cost basis to be around $4.5-$4.6bn, but after what it termed a "strong operating performance" BP boosted profits by 18% from a year earlier to $5.5bn.Cigarettes maker Imperial Tobacco topped market forecasts with its full year profits, and took a big bite out of its debt mountain. Adjusted profit before tax in the year to 30 September rose 10% to £2,467m from £2,233m the year before. The market had pencilled in a figure of £2.320m. Net debt was reduced over the period by £1.5bn to £9.3bn.BG Group grew third quarter earnings by 27% and now thinks there's an extra 2.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) at its oilfields in the Santo Basin offshore Brazil, 34% more than previous estimates. Best estimates of gross resources in the Tupi, Iracema, and Guará fields increase to 10.8bn boe from 8.1bn boe before.Better margins at its core banking business and bad debts under control kept state-controlled bank Lloyds on track over the past three months, despite 'subdued' loan demand.Impairments, or bad debts, have continued to decline and for the full year the level is expected to be in line with Lloyds' recent indications. Wholesale impairments will be lower than expected offset by higher Wealth and International charges, originating in Ireland and Australia primarily.