LONDON BRIEFING: Greek 'No' Vote Is No Disaster For Share Prices

LONDON (Alliance News) - Share trading in London is taking the outcome of the Greek referendum mostly in its stride Monday. Despite a resounding 'no' by Greek voters to the terms offered for the nation's debt bailout, stock indices are down less than 1%.

Stock markets in France and Germany are faring only slightly worse, with the CAC 40 in Paris down 2.0% and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt off just 1.8%.

A larger fall initially indicated by futures prices was pulled back upon the early morning news that Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has resigned, citing the "loathing" for him by his eurozone negotiating partners.

Among individual shares, Rolls-Royce is the biggest FTSE 100 decline by some distance, down 8.5% after issuing a profit warning and halting its share buyback programme.

Here is what you need to know at the London market open:
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MARKETS
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FTSE 100: down 0.7% at 6,541.08
FTSE 250: down 0.8% at 17,464.76
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.3% at 761.74
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Hang Seng: down 3.3% at 25,207.21
Nikkei 225: closed down 2.1% at 20,112.12
DJIA and S&P 500: closed Friday for holiday
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GBP: down at USD1.5541
EUR: down at USD1.1053

GOLD: flat at USD1,167.98 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD59.73 a barrel

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

09:30 EU Sentix Investor Confidence
14:45 US Markit Services and Composite PMI
15:00 US ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI
15:00 US Labor Market Conditions Index
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Greek voters resoundingly rejected bailout terms in a referendum, Athens said it was willing to resume talks with international creditors, and eurozone leaders were planning an emergency summit Tuesday to tackle the crisis. "We are ready to continue negotiations," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said. In the Tsipras government's hastily arranged referendum Sunday, the "no" vote got 61.3% of the vote, according to the Interior Ministry in Athens. In an address on national television, Tsipras said the referendum was a mandate not against Europe but for "a sustainable solution," saying that renegotiating Greece's debt must now be on the table in renewed talks.
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Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has resigned from his position, a day after Greek voters opted to reject the bailout terms offered to the country by its lenders. "Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted 'partners', for my... 'absence' from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement. For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today," Varoufakis said in a post on its blog. "And I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride," he added.
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China stocks opened higher after a string of measures to reverse the market free-fall were announced over the weekend. Twenty-eight Chinese companies said they were postponing initial public offerings and will refund money already paid, the official Xinhua news agency reported late Saturday. China's major securities brokers also vowed Saturday to spend no less than CNY120 billion for a fund to invest in blue chip-based exchange traded funds. The announcements followed government measures, such as a cut in interest rates last month, that had failed to reverse the slump.
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Germany's factory orders decreased at a slower-than-expected pace in May, preliminary figures from Destatis showed. New orders in the manufacturing sector fell a seasonally and working-day-adjusted 0.2% monthly in May, in contrast to a 2.2% climb in April, which was revised up from a 1.4% growth. Economists had expected a 0.4% drop for the month.
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Western chief diplomats urged Iran to seize the opportunity to end the long stand-off over the its nuclear programme, as they started a last effort to clinch a broad agreement with the Islamic republic. Both sides had overcome several differences but remain apart on some decisive points, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. Foreign ministers from Britain, China, France, Russia, the US and Germany gathered Sunday evening in Vienna ahead of a self-imposed Tuesday deadline to strike a deal with Iran.
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The situation in eastern Ukraine has deteriorated significantly in the last week, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe warned Sunday, with heavy weaponry such as tanks and howitzers spotted along the front lines. Such weapons were supposed to have been removed according to an agreement signed by the government and pro-Russian separatists in February, the deputy head of the Ukraine mission, Alexander Hug, said during a visit to the port city of Mariupol.
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An attempt Saturday by migrants to storm the tunnel connecting France and Britain led to renewed calls for action to solve a worsening migrant crisis in Calais. Disruptions occurred after about 150 migrants tried to storm the terminal on the French side, authorities said. Freight services through the tunnel had been suspended, the Highways England agency said, resulting in long queues of lorries on the British side. Passenger service was not affected.
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BROKER RATING CHANGES
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TRADERS: BARCLAYS CUTS TAYLOR WIMPEY TO 'EQUAL WEIGHT' ('OVERWEIGHT')
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TRADERS: BARCLAYS RAISES BELLWAY TO 'OVERWEIGHT' ('EQUAL WEIGHT')
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SOCGEN RAISES ASOS PRICE TARGET TO 4,906 (4,666) PENCE - 'BUY'
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COMPANIES - FTSE 100
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London-listed airlines easyJet, Wizz Air Holdings and Aer Lingus Group all said customer traffic and load factors improved in June. EasyJet said it carried 6.6 million passengers in June, up from 6.1 million a year earlier, for a 7.6% rise. It said its load factor for the month improved, up by 0.7 percentage point to 92.7% from 92.0% a year earlier. Wizz Air, the Central and Eastern European low-cost airline, said its passenger numbers in June rose by 18% to 1.7 million from 1.5 million a year earlier. Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus, which reports traffic figures measured in revenue passenger kilometres, said traffic increased by 10% in the month to 1.9 million, up from 1.7 million, with robust growth in long haul traffic and a more muted but still improved performance in short haul. The airline said its load factor in the month improved by 0.3 percentage point to 85.8% from 85.5% a year earlier.
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Rolls-Royce Holdings said it has slashed its guidance for 2016 due to problems afflicting its Civil Aerospace and Marine divisions. While its revenue guidance for 2015 remains unchanged, the group said that is now expects free cash flow to be between a GBP150 million negative and GBP150 million, compared to its previous guidance of GBP50 million to GBP350 million. Given this weaker cash flow outlook, the company said it will discontinue its current GBP1 billion share buyback programme, having completed half of it in the first half. For 2016, the company said it is set to take a hit of around GBP300 million in the Civil Aerospace business, due to the Trent 700 programme, business jet and regional aftermarket weakness, which is set to continue into the new year. In addition, the group expects to take a GBP85 million hit in both its 2015 and 2016 financial year from its Marine business due to continuing weakness in offshore markets.
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Dutch financial services company ING Groep has entered exclusive talks to acquire the Turkish arm of HSBC Holdings, the Financial Times reports. HSBC outlined plans to sell the loss-making Turkish business as part of a strategic overhaul it announced last month, which also includes plans to sell its Brazilian business, cut 25,000 jobs, and cut assets in its investment bank. For ING, the deal would mark a return to deal-making, having been banned from doing acquisitions under European state aid rules until only a few weeks ago.
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COMPANIES - FTSE 250
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Housebuilder Bovis Homes Group outlined plans to increase its interim dividend after it said home sales rose in the first half of 2015 at higher prices. Bovis said it is planning to hike its interim dividend for the six months to June 30 to 13.7 pence per share, up 14% from the 12.0 pence per share payout it made a year earlier. The bigger payout to shareholders follows a rise in legal completions in the first half to 1,525 homes, up from 1,487 a year earlier and a record sales volume for the company in the half. The average sales price of those homes sold also increased for Bovis, up by 6% to GBP222,000 from GBP210,000 a year earlier.
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Ophir Energy said its expects to meet its financial and production targets for the full year and said it has a healthy cash balance as it continues to reduce costs. The FTSE 250-listed oil and gas company said revenue, cash flow and capital expenditure all are expected to be in line with expectations for the full year.
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Lender Shawbrook Group named Iain Cornish as its new chairman, replacing former Royal Bank of Scotland Group boss George Mathewson. Cornish, a founding member of the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority, is currently a senior independent director of debt manager Arrow Global Group and of FTSE 100 wealth manager St James's Place. He was the chief executive of Yorkshire Building Society for eight years to 2011.
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COMPANIES - LONDON MAIN MARKET AND AIM
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Monitise, a mobile banking and payments company, cut its revenue guidance for its current financial year. Monitise, which designs the mobile apps banks make available to their customers, said it expects revenue for the year ended June 30 to be between GBP88 million and GBP90 million. That is lower than the range of GBP90 million and GBP100 million that the company had previously expected. Elizabeth Buse, who became the company's sole chief executive when founder Alastair Lukies stepped down in March, said Monitise had delivered a "solid revenue performance" in a "difficult" year.
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Velocys said it has suspended Chief Executive Roy Lipski whilst an investigation is carried out over allegations of "serious misconduct". The gas-to-liquid company said the allegations do not involve fraud or financial impropriety and said the investigation and his suspension does not constitute as disciplinary action or imply he is guilty of any offences. Whilst the investigation is carried out, current Chief Financial Officer Susan Robertson will act as the company's CEO.
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Marshalls said its first half revenue increased by 11% and said the robust trading momentum has continued into the second half of 2015. The company, which makes paving and landscaping products, said revenue in the first six months was 11% higher, up to GBP199 million to GBP180 million a year earlier. Marshalls said the strong performance in the half has carried into the second and will underpin its expectations for the year.
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COMPANIES - INTERNATIONAL
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A massive drop in profits from electricity generation has forced Germany's second largest energy provider RWE to carry out wide-ranging internal restructuring, a spokeswoman said. Job losses were not part of the plan, RWE stressed, rather it planned to focus on a simpler structure. The Rheinische Post newspaper had reported Saturday that the simpler structures would either be a merger of all the company's subsidiaries into one company, or a complete amalgamation with the parent company.
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Japanese electronics giant Toshiba's accounting scandal is widening. It is now expected that the company will need to downwardly revise its past operating profits by over JPY150 billion or USD1.21 billion, Nikkei reported. Toshiba incurred a record net loss of about JPY340 billion in fiscal 2008, which ended in March 2009, as its core semiconductor business deteriorated amid the global financial crisis that struck in the autumn of 2008. In 2011, meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant dealt a severe blow to Toshiba's nuclear power plant business.
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Monday's Scheduled AGMs/EGMs

Trakm8 Holdings
Marwyn Management Partners
Connemara Mining
Martin Currie Pacific Trust
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com; @thomaslwaite

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