London open: Blue chips open lower

London has opened weaker, continuing the softer trend seen towards the end of yesterday's session with retailers and food groups under pressure.The snow lost Next an estimated £22m of full price sales in the run-up to Christmas - about 2.2% of the season's total sales - although the high street fashion chain remains on target to meet full-year profit forecasts. Like for like sales between 1 August and 24 December tumbled 6.1%, worse than analysts expected. Fast growing pizza delivery firm Domino's Pizza will deliver an extra topping of profits after a strong finish to the year. System sales for the 13 week period to 26 December increased by 17.8% to £132.5m from £112.4m in the corresponding period of 2009.Entertainment media retailer HMV is in serious strife with a warning that it may struggle to meet bank covenants after sales tumbled in December. "Given the difficult trading conditions over Christmas and the likely outturn for the year, the board now expects that compliance with the April covenant test under the group's bank facility will be tight and is taking further mitigating actions during the next four months to address this," it said. AB Foods and Marks & Spencer are lower after a report that the cost of a loaf of bread is set to rise this month after UK wheat prices hit an all-time high. Industry executives and traders have quietly told wholesale consumers, such as bakers and pasta and biscuit producers, to expect price increases over the next two to three weeks, following a round of hikes in October and November, the FT reports.Oil fabrications giant Petrofac has confirmed the appointment of Andy Inglis, the former head of BP's exploration and production and who was in charge of safety at the time of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.India-focused Hardy Oil and Gas has plugged and abandoned the KG-D9-B3 well on its D9 (KG-DWN-2001/1) exploration licence. Hardy's second exploratory well in the Krishna Godavari basin on the East Coast of India drilled down 3,829 metres. There were gas shows of 6-9%, but tests suggests water gradient in the sand packages. Oil explorer Gulf Keystone shares picked up after a bullish update on its Shaikan-3 shallow appraisal well, which tested the Cretaceous intervals in the immediate vicinity its huge Shaikan-1 discovery. As a result of the tests, log evaluations and recovered fluid samples, Gulf Keystone's current P50 (probable) to P10 (possible) estimate of Garagu oil in place volumes is 220m to 2.2bn barrels. Trading has continued to improve at banking software company Gresham Computing which made a profit in the fourth quarter. Business had already improved during the first three quarters of 2010 when the company returned to a first half profit of £0.1m.