London midday: No surprises from BoE, market awaits ECB decision

After a strong start, the Footsie pared gains by lunchtime, ahead of a busy afternoon and evening in the Eurozone. The Bank of England (BoE) issued no surprises, keeping interest rates on hold. Markets are now awaiting a decision on European Central Bank (ECB) interest rates due out at 12:45 London time, while the continent gears up for a crucial EU Summit later on in Brussels.BOE HOLDS RATES, ECB EXPECTED TO CUTThe BoE kept its Bank Rate at the historically low level of 0.5% and made no changes to its asset purchase programme, as expected. The Monetary Policy Committee said that he £275bn asset purchase programme would take another two months to complete, but said that its scale would be kept under review. Minutes of the meeting won't be published until 21 December.Following Mario Draghi's debut as ECB President last month in which he lowered rates from 1.5% to 1.25%, markets are generally expecting a further 25 percentage point cut to 1%, back to the level which was held from May 2009 to April 2011. Meanwhile, a proposal by European leaders to double the region's firepower against the crisis lifted sentiment in European markets on Wednesday. However, these reports were quickly denied by a German government official. Reports out on Nikkei.com last night added to the speculation: Nikkei has said that the G-20 is proposing a $600bn fund for the International Monetary Fund to ease the troubles in the Eurozone.TESCO & STANDARD CHARTERED RECOVER AFTER EARLY FALLTesco was the heaviest faller early on but clawed its way back in mid-morning, trading only slightly in the red by midday. The supermarket giant reported that like-for-like (LFL) sales dropped in its UK stores by 0.9% in the third quarter but this was in line with the performance during the second quarter. Nomura issued a positive note on the stock this morning, saying: "We hold our earnings numbers in the wake of a resilient quarter from Tesco with encouraging undertones, underscoring the company's position of relative strength."Standard Chartered recovered to trade flat despite saying its income for 2011 is now expected to grow at "just below a double digit rate" after a depreciation in Asian exchange rates against the dollar. Previously the bank forecast double digit revenue growth, but today it said it had been hit by Asian exchange rates falling by up to 5% since its third quarter statement. Nomura again did its part to lift sentiment, saying that the pre-close trading update is "relatively encouraging to us in the current global environment."Another profit warning came from 'Imperial Leather' soap maker PZ Cussons, which dropped over 10% early on after warning that overall profit in the six months to the end of November will come in below expectations. The firm said high raw material costs and adverse exchange rate movement had continued to impact margins in the first half of the year. In contrast, Ashtead, the plant-hire group, jumped after saying it expects full-year profits to be "substantially ahead" of expectations as underlying pre-tax profit soared nearly 200% for the first half ended 31 October. GKN was leading the fallers on the FTSE 100 after Credit Suisse downgraded the stock from outperform to neutral.Vedanta Resources rose - along with the rest of the miners (including ENRC and Kazakhmys) - after completing their transaction to buy an additional 30% stake of Cairn India for $4.1bn. Vedanta now holds a 58.5% interest in the Indian oil firm. Cairn Energy, for its part, was lower by midday despite announcing that it will return $3.5bn to shareholders. Other notable movers include AIM-listed Bango which said it has signed an agreement to provide services to Amazon, but gave no specifics as to what they were. Shares jumped nearly 20%.Packaging and holograms supplier API rose nearly 15% after seeing profits more than double in the first half, while coal miner Altona was up 14% on news the firm has won approval from the South Australian Government for exploratory work at its Arckaringa project.BCFTSE 100 - RisersEurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC) 697.50p +2.27%Kazakhmys (KAZ) 960.50p +2.07%Shire Plc (SHP) 2,181.00p +1.87%Vedanta Resources (VED) 1,118.00p +1.73%GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,451.50p +1.65%ITV (ITV) 65.10p +1.64%British American Tobacco (BATS) 3,016.50p +1.58%Reed Elsevier (REL) 518.50p +1.47%Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 2,385.00p +1.40%Diageo (DGE) 1,385.00p +1.35%FTSE 100 - FallersGKN (GKN) 186.10p -2.00%BP (BP.) 451.00p -1.97%IMI (IMI) 760.00p -1.49%Essar Energy (ESSR) 238.40p -1.37%Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,260.00p -1.33%Legal & General Group (LGEN) 108.00p -1.19%Associated British Foods (ABF) 1,085.00p -1.18%Schroders (Non-Voting) (SDRC) 1,104.00p -1.08%Land Securities Group (LAND) 662.00p -1.05%Meggitt (MGGT) 357.70p -0.97%FTSE 250 - RisersAshtead Group (AHT) 204.90p +10.16%Kenmare Resources (KMR) 37.85p +5.99%SVG Capital (SVI) 194.00p +2.59%AZ Electronic Materials SA (WI) (AZEM) 242.10p +2.58%Jupiter Fund Management (JUP) 223.50p +2.29%Kentz Corporation Ltd. (KENZ) 480.00p +2.13%AG Barr (BAG) 1,209.00p +2.03%Premier Oil (PMO) 380.70p +1.96%African Barrick Gold (ABG) 518.50p +1.87%Senior (SNR) 173.90p +1.70%FTSE 250 - FallersPZ Cussons (PZC) 302.00p -12.39%London & Stamford Property Ltd. (LSP) 105.20p -8.68%Phoenix Group Holdings (DI) (PHNX) 532.00p -4.14%Mothercare (MTC) 157.10p -3.91%Imagination Technologies Group (IMG) 462.00p -3.65%Home Retail Group (HOME) 86.55p -3.46%CSR (CSR) 169.40p -3.42%Hays (HAS) 65.55p -3.39%Sports Direct International (SPD) 219.90p -3.38%Thomas Cook Group (TCG) 15.85p -3.29%