London pre-open: Dull start expected

The Footsie went into a late swoon yesterday and the trend looks set to continue this morning with City traders expecting the blue-chip index to open around 13 points lower.The continued growth in popularity of mobile devices using ARM Holdings' intellectual property was largely responsible for a sharp rise in the chip designer's third quarter profits. Revenue in the third quarter rose 34% to £100.4m from £75.2m in the corresponding period of last year. In dollar terms, revenue rose 29%. Normalised profit before tax rose 60%, or 55% in dollar terms, to £38.8m from £24.3m the year before. Cairn Energy remains 'extremely encouraged' by the early stage drilling of its offshore prospects in Greenland even though it failed to find a commercial discovery. "The T8-1 and T4-1 wells did not result in commercial discoveries; consequently the well costs, including all associated demobilisation and other costs, of $185m are forecast to be written off," the firm said today.Fidessa, the provider of multi-asset trading systems, said uncertainty in its markets has continued into the third quarter. "Looking ahead, we believe the market will remain difficult to predict," the company said. "Despite this, we are confident that we can deliver good growth for 2010 as a whole although, as previously stated, we do not believe that the overall rate of growth will be as high as that seen during 2009," it added. Capricorn Energy PLC