London open: Footsie marks time

Last night's decline on Wall Street, its first of 2010, has tipped Footsie lower a little in early deals though the fall so far is modest.US stocks were hurt by weaker than expected fourth quarter results from aluminium producer Alcoa after hours Monday, while Chinese moves to cool bank lending and a profit warning from Chevron also hurt sentiment.Life groups and fund managers are the best performers so far with Man, Schroders and Prudential all sought in the first hour. Falls by the oil majors are offsetting this with Shell, BP and lower while miners are mixed.Kraft Foods has increased its earnings guidance for 2009 as it attempts to generate momentum for its hostile bid for Cadbury after the latest rebuttal from the UK chocolate group yesterday. The US processed food giant says diluted earnings per share for the year just ended will be at least $2 versus previous expectations of at least $1.97. Cadbury repeated on Monday its view that the American's £10.5bn offer is 'derisory' and completely undervalues the UK business. Among the mid-caps, emerging markets asset manager Ashmore Group increased assets under management by 2% in the second quarter, but that's less than many analysts were hoping for given improved conditions. AuM for the quarter to 31 December rose to $31.6bn from $31.1bn in September, but analysts at UBS yesterday predicted AuM would rise 3% to $32bn, which was less than its previous forecast of $32.5bn due to expected further redemptions by US pension funds.Greggs expects full year results to be in line with expectations and said more customers popped into the bakery chain for hot pies over Christmas. Over the four week Christmas trading period to 26 December total sales grew by 3.1% and like-for-like sales grew by 1.1%. The group said it sold more than a million mince pies each week, up 6% on last year.More good growth from its online operation helped mail order clothing group N Brown's sales rise handily over the Christmas period. Total revenue increased by 4.9% for the 19 weeks ended 9 January 2010 with like-for-like sales, excluding revenue from Simply Be in Germany and High & Mighty, up 3.6%. Online sales have increased by 13% and now account for 39% of the total sales.SIG said it has seen exceptionally challenging conditions and disruption to trading caused by extreme weather conditions in a number of countries in the final weeks of the year, but does not expect full year underlying pre-tax profits to be less than current analysts' consensus expectations of £60m.The building products group said total sales for the year were c.£2,744m, a drop of about £310m (10.1%) from 2008 (£3,054m). Like for like sales fell c.11.5% in sterling and by c.15.6% in constant currency.Industrial conveyor belt maker Fenner said trading during the initial months of the current financial year has been encouraging and it expects 'attractive earnings growth.'