Marks & Spencer Share News (MKS)

Investors seem to be in the mood to sit on their hands ahead of today's announcement from the Bank of England on whether it will resume the quantitative easing (QE) programme, with City sources suggesting the FTSE 100 index will open just a couple of points lower.There have been calls for more QE from within the nine-member Monetary Policy Committee, and yesterday the Institute of Directors (IoD) added its voice to demands for the Bank to increase fiscal stimulus. It called for a further £50bn expansion to QE, pointing to 'recent softening across a range of economic indicators'. There has been good news from one of the Footsie's stalwarts, however. Like for like sales growth at high street bellwether Marks & Spencer's UK stores were well ahead of market expectations in the third quarter. UK like for like (LFL) sales had been expected to be up year on year by anywhere between 1.3% and 4.6%; M&S delivered a 5.3% increase in the 13 weeks to 2 October.Indian miner Vedanta produced record amounts of zinc, lead and aluminium during the second quarter. In the three months to 30 September it grew refined zinc output by 25% to 176,000 tonnes to make it 341,000 tonnes for the half-year, an increase of almost 22%.Strong trading across its divisions helped casino and bingo hall operator Rank to a 7% rise in like-for-like sales in the third quarter, leaving the company confident for the full year despite challenging economic conditions.British Gas owner Centrica is paying £5.7m in cash for a 15.96% stake in home energy management services firm AlertMe, and has also signed a commercial agreement, potentially worth over £20m , to deploy AlertMe products and services to its customers in the UK.