London open: Footsie struggles despite bumper Apple crop

Excitement in the US over better than expected third quarter results from iPhone giant Apple has not crossed the Atlantic with UK blue chips struggling to make headway.Banks are proving a drag. Barclays is lower, seemingly on the news that its president Bob Diamond has turned down the chance to become chief exectutive of Bank of America. Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds are also both down.Lloyds, meanwhile, has continued to divest its peripheral businesses with the sale of the Bank of Scotland Portfolio Management Service and two other private client businesses to Rathbone Brothers for £35.4m.Education group and FT publisher Pearson is ahead after it upped its estimate of full year earnings after trading better than expected in recent weeks. 'Pearson is trading ahead of expectations and we now expect full year adjusted earnings to be at or above 60p per share, assuming that the current exchange rate of £1:$1.64 prevails in the fourth quarter,' it said.Swiss mining company Xstrata's operating and financial performance in the third quarter remained strong. The company had a mixed spell on the production front, with increased volumes of thermal and semi-soft coal, platinum group metals (PGMs), refined nickel, zinc in concentrate and lead metal compared to the third quarter of 2008, but lower volumes of ferrochrome and copper. Fast growing software company Autonomy has run into profit taking despite another spell of strong organic growth in the third quarter. Revenues in the three months to 30 September rose to $191.61m from $121.11m in the third quarter of 2008. Organic revenue rose 15%. Third quarter adjusted profit before tax climbed to $64.27m from $53.67m in the third quarter of 2008.Balfour Beatty has snagged a batch of contracts in the US, the majority of which are with the US military. The construction and engineering contractor announced details of $449m of new contracts in the US states of Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Texas and North Carolina.Car dealer Inchcape's full year results are expected to be significantly ahead of previous expectations, but cautioned that conditions are expected to remain challenging well into the second half of 2010.