London pre-open: FTSE to open lower on Greek bail-out delays

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open down 19 points from yesterday's close of 5,748, after Eurozone finance ministers were last night unable to thrash out an agreement on how to finance a two-year extension in Greece's commitments. While some of the country's lenders - such as Germany, the Netherlands and Finland (the other Troika) - are willing to go so far so as to even consider a temporary suspension of interest payments, they refuse to put more money on the table."We have a series of options on the table on how to close the financing gap," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told reporters. Be that as it may, in the end no clear agreement was forthcoming. "We discussed the issue very intensively, but since the questions are so complicated we didn't come to a final agreement," he added. Another meeting has been scheduled for Monday. Announcements due out today include the Bank of England Interest Rate minutes, expected at 09:30 this morning, along with public finance data for October. Abroad, today's announcements include US initial jobless claims, US leading indicators, the Bloomberg Consumer Confidence reading and the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index for November. Acting as a backdrop, China's Shanghai Composite index last night again dipped below the psychological 2,000 point level, which it first conquered back in July 2000. In company news, FTSE 100 platinum refiner Johnson Matthey reported a six per cent drop in profits in the first half and said that it doesn't expect things to pick up in the latter part of the fiscal year. The company, which is a world leader in emissions control technologies, said that pre-tax profits declined from £195.1m to £183.4m year-on-year in the six months to September 30th.As expected, contract caterer Compass Group saw profits break through the billion-pound barrier in the 12 months to the end of September, prompting the board to push up its full-year dividend and announce a new share buy-back programme. Underling pre-tax profit jumped 7% year-on-year on a constant currency basis to £1,093m, slightly ahead of the £1,074 consensus estimate. Earnings per share came in at 42.6p, up 10%.Tempus writes that Halma, a specialist industrial products and sensors maker, is focused on areas that are either benefiting from tighter regulation or are not the subject of cost-cutting when times are hard. It has raised dividends by 5% or more for 33 years and has increased revenues and profits in 37 out of the past 40 years. Both revenues and pre-tax profits before one-offs were up 6% in the first half to the end of September, to £298.1m and £60.8m, respectively, and the halfway dividend is raised 7% to 4.06p, so that record looks safe for now. Within that, the industrial safety division achieved a return on sales of 24.5%, among the highest that the company has recorded in any business. The shares are up by 14% since the start of the year and sell on about 16 times' earnings. A high rating; but one would not want to bet that this progress cannot be maintained.