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LONDON (Alliance News) - Shares have opened sharply higher Thursday, led by large blue-chips and following an exceptionally strong day on Wall Street and positive performances by Asian equities, with the Shanghai Composite index up 4.4%.

Building materials firm CRH leads FTSE 100 gainers, up 3.8%, after reporting strong earnings and revenue and saying it has struck a USD1.3 billion deal to acquire US group CR Laurence Co.

Here is what you need to know at the London market open:
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MARKETS
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FTSE 100: up 2.2% at 6,108.44
FTSE 250: up 1.2% at 16,804.12
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.4% at 719.23
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Hang Seng: up 3.1% at 21,729.62
Nikkei 225: closed up 1.1% at 18,574.44
DJIA: closed up 4.0% at 16,285.51
S&P 500: closed up 3.9% at 1,940.51
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GBP: up at USD1.5488
EUR: up at USD1.1325

GOLD: up at USD1,127.30 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD44.34 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Thursday's Key Economic Events still to come
(all times in BST)

US Jackson Hole Symposium
09:00 EU M3 Money Supply, Private loans
11:00 Ireland Gross Domestic Product
13:30 US Initial and Continuing Jobless Claims
13:30 US Gross Domestic Product Preliminary
13:30 US Personal Consumption Expenditures Preliminary
15:00 US Pending Home Sales
15:30 US EIA Natural Gas Storage
16:00 US Kansas Fed manufacturing activity
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The case for a US interest rate hike in September is "less compelling" given problems with the global economy and plunging stocks, said William Dudley, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, on Wednesday. "From my perspective, at this moment, the decision to begin the normalisation process at the September FOMC meeting seems less compelling to me than it was a few weeks ago," he said. "But normalisation could become more compelling by the time of the meeting as we get additional information on how the US economy is performing and more information on international and financial market developments, all of which are important in shaping the US economic outlook," he added.
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A television reporter and cameraman were shot dead Wednesday by a disgruntled former co-worker while filming a live interview near the town of Moneta, Virginia. Vester Lee Flanagan, a 41-year-old African-American former employee of the station who had alleged racial discrimination by fellow employees, approached the pair as cameras rolled and started shooting, Franklin County Sheriff Bill Overton said. Cameraman Adam Ward, 27, and reporter Alison Parker, 24, both white, were shot and killed at about 6:45 am during an interview for a story on local tourism with a Chamber of Commerce employee, their broadcaster WDBJ reported. When police tried to arrest Flanagan, he shot himself, police said. He died later in a hospital outside Washington.
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Eleven port and transport officials are being prosecuted for the chemical blasts that killed 139 people and left 34 missing in Tianjin, China, state media reported. Officials working for the port company, transport, work safety, land and customs departments are being probed for "dereliction of duty" and "abuse of power," the Xinhua news agency reported, citing a statement from the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
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BROKER RATING CHANGES
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BERENBERG RAISES RELX TO 'BUY' ('HOLD') - TARGET 1170 PENCE
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BERENBERG RAISES WPP TO 'HOLD' ('SELL') - TARGET 1360 (1325) PENCE
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TRADERS: MORGAN STANLEY CUTS HAMMERSON TO 'EQUAL-WEIGHT' ('OVERWEIGHT')
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TRADERS: MS RAISES LONDONMETRIC PROPERTY TO 'EQUAL-WEIGHT' ('UNDERWEIGHT')
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COMPANIES - FTSE 100
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Irish building materials company CRH said its pretax profit for the first half rose slightly, held back by the cost of a bond repayment, but its earnings and revenue both surged, boosted by the weak euro, and it said it has struck a USD1.3 billion deal to acquire US group CR Laurence Co. The FTSE 100 company said its pretax profit for the first half to the end of June was EUR63.0 million, compared to EUR61.0 million a year earlier. The pretax figure was held back by a EUR38.0 million charge the company booked related to an early bond redemption during the half. CRH said it will maintain its interim dividend at 18.5 euro cents per share.
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Barclays and seven major US stock exchanges won the dismissal of nationwide litigation in which pension funds and other investors had accused them of rigging markets in order to benefit high-frequency traders, Reuters reported. US District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan, New York said federal law gives exchanges "absolute immunity" from the key claims made by the plaintiffs, including allegations over the creation of "complex order types" and proprietary data feeds which can benefit high-frequency traders due to their status as self-regulating organisations. Furman also said the plaintiffs did not show they reasonably relied on misrepresentations made by Barclays about the safety of its "dark pool".
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Advertising and marketing group WPP said its J Walter Thompson Australia arm has acquired a majority stake in Webling Interactive for an undisclosed sum. WPP said Webling is a Sydney-based digital agency which counts the likes of American Expresss and Coca-Cola amongst its clients. For the year to the end of June, Webling posted revenue of AUD4.4 million.
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J Sainsbury said that it will increase the pay of 137,000 in-store members of staff by 4%, following the introduction of the national living wage recently announced by the UK government. The pay rise will take Sainsbury's standard rate of pay to GBP7.36 per hour, effective from August 30, above the GBP7.20 per hour living wage set to be introduced by the government. The supermarket also said that the rate of pay will apply to employees of all ages, as opposed to only those over the age of 25 as recommended by the government.
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Telecom giant Vodafone Group said Vodafone Turkey has secured 82.8 MHz of spectrum for enhanced mobile data and voice services in the Information and Communication Technology Authority's auction for EUR778 million. Vodafone stated that the spectrum acquired will enable Vodafone Turkey to improve significantly the speed, coverage and capacity of its mobile data services.
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COMPANIES - FTSE 250
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Amec Foster Wheeler reported a dip in pretax profit in the first half of 2015 as market conditions remained challenging, but the company said it is confident it can meet full-year expectations. The oil and gas services company reported a GBP73.0 million pretax profit in the six months to June 30, falling from a GBP83.0 million profit a year earlier, as revenue rose to GBP2.66 billion from GBP1.85 billion. However, scope revenue, which is revenue less pass-through procurement revenue, fell to GBP2.58 billion from GBP2.61 billion. The company kept its interim dividend flat at 14.8 pence per share.
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Playtech reported a rise in pretax profit for its first half, and expressed confidence in further growth in 2015 "any beyond", based on progress in its Gaming business and steps it has made to form and bolster its new Financials division. The gambling software and services provider proposed an interim dividend of 9.6 euro cents, up from 8.9 cents a year before.
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Synergy Health said it is trading in line with its expectations for its current financial year, as it saw revenue rise 9% in its first quarter. In the quarter to end-June, the company reported revenue of GBP104.2 million, up from GBP95.6 million. At constant currency, revenue would have increased 10.7%. The company said its operating margin remains 60 basis points higher than in the previous year.
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Builders' merchant and DIY company Grafton Group reported a big rise in pretax profit for the first half to the end of June, as the group's revenue was pushed higher by improving conditions in its key markets. The group said its pretax profit for the first half was GBP57.9 million, up from GBP45.9 million a year earlier, as revenue increased to GBP1.08 billion from GBP1.02 billion a year earlier. On the back of the robust results, Grafton hiked its interim dividend by 20% to 4.50 pence per share, up from 3.75 pence.
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Recruitment company Hays said its pretax profit surged in its recent financial year, despite it taking a hit from the weaker euro and Australian dollar, as net fee income rose and its conversion rate rose to the highest level since 2009. The group said its pretax profit for the financial year to the end of June was GBP156.1 million, up from GBP132.3 million a year earlier, an 18% increase despite the group taking a GBP9.6 million hit from the depreciation of the euro and the Australian dollar against sterling. The group's net fee income in the year was up to GBP764.2 million from GBP724.9 million, with like-for-like growth, which strips out the currency translation effects, up by 9.0%. Hays said increased its total dividend to 2.76 pence per share from 2.63p.
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Steel maker Evraz reported higher pretax profit despite revenue falling in the first half, as the company slashed costs across the board to battle the downturn in commodities markets. The company warned that it will continue to face difficult conditions in the second half of the year and vowed to continue to cut costs. Evras reported a rise in pretax profit in the first half to June 30 to USD120.0 million from USD99.0 million a year earlier, despite revenue dropping to USD4.78 billion from USD6.62 billion.
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COMPANIES - INTERNATIONAL
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Pernod Ricard, a French producer of spirits and wines, reported its net profit for the full year slid 14% to EUR880 million from last year's EUR1.027 billion. Sales for the full year totalled EUR8.558 million euros, up 8% from last year, with a very favourable FX impact. Organic Sales grew 2%.
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Panasonic plans to end production at its lithium-ion battery plant in Beijing next week, laying off 1,300 employees, a report said. The Japanese consumer electronics giant plans to close the factory in September, the Nikkei business daily reported without citing any sources. The plant has been producing batteries for mobile phones and digital cameras mainly for non-Japanese manufacturers, but its profitability has been falling due to fierce competition with South Korean rivals, the paper said.
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Aerospace giant Boeing reached a preliminary settlement to resolve a long-running lawsuit that charged it with mishandling its 401(k) plan to the detriment of its employees, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Wednesday. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The settlement was reached on the day when the trial was scheduled the begin. The law suit was initially filed nine years ago in 2006, and was granted class-action status in 2013 on behalf of 190,000 Boeing employees and retirees.
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Fidelity Investments is considering dropping American Express and Bank of America to find new partners and better terms for cash-back credit cards in the US, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Visa and MasterCard are in talks with Fidelity, vying to replace AmEx, the report stated.
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Nippon Life Insurance is in talks with National Australia Bank to buy the bank's insurance business, The Yomiuri Shimbun reported. Citing sources, the newspaper said the acquisition cost is likely to be between JPY200 billion and JPY300 billion. Nippon Life is also considering purchasing Mitsui Life Insurance Co., the report said.
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Thursday's Scheduled AGMs/EGMs

Globalworth Real Estate
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com; @thomaslwaite

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