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First quarter trading update: In a strange parallel to the Chinese economy, where the slightest slowdown in growth filters through to a drag on investor sentiment, Burberry is being taken in isolation. If set against yesterday's update from M&S, for example, the numbers are in a different league, as are the prospects. However, the shares' valuation is quite full and the weight of expectation is heavy. Added to this, the previous announcement of further investment in the company being likely to crimp margins in the medium term, along with concerns over the potential perils of luxury discretionary spending (let alone within the backdrop of fashion, where fads can change overnight) are bearing down on the shares. At the moment, from an investment perspective, it is difficult to pigeonhole the stock as either income (2% dividend yield) or growth (share price down 16% over the last three months, as compared to a 0.5% gain for the wider FTSE100). Even so, the company arguably remains the best house in a bad neighbourhood. Its exposure to Asia is supported by any economic upturn in the US or indeed Europe, and the 12% share price dip over the last year could prompt potential investors into having another look

Burberry Group PLC is a British luxury fashion house, manufacturing clothing and fashion accessories. Its distinctive tartan pattern has become one of its most widely copied trademarks. The company has branded stores and franchises around the world and also sells through concessions in third-party stores. It runs a catalogue business and has a fragrance line. HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH, the Prince of Wales have granted the company Royal Warrants. Burberry's trademark products are its fashionable handbags and exclusive fragrances. Burberry is quoted on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Positive Points: Management heralded the rapid progress made in its cost saving programme. It now expects to achieve the full run rate savings in excess of £50 million per annum by the end of the current financial year. This was originally targeted for the end of financial year 2013/14 and therefore the figure for the next financial year will be substantially higher. Strong growth was reported in the brokerage's post trade services division. The company confirmed the acquisition of PLUS Stock Exchange Plc for £500,000 was completed on 21 June 2012. As the world's largest interdealer broker and supplier of post trade risk and information services, ICAP continues to benefit from greater scale and broader diversity than its peers. As indicated in full year results in May, other market counterparties Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and Bank of America Merrill Lynch have agreed to co-invest in iSwap Euro Limited, which operates its electronic interest rate swaps platform. ICAP's view is that it will greatly enhance the platform's growth as swaps trading becomes increasingly electronic. A progressive dividend policy, has to date, been pursued.

Negative Points: The Inter-dealer and money broking markets are notoriously competitive. Unlike exchanges, IDBs do not benefit from natural monopolies. Customers are able to offset one IDB against another causing strong downward margin pressure. Emerging markets performance had been disappointing due to the lack of risk appetite in cross-border trading, however this is expected to improve and revenue growth in Brazil remains strong, added management. ICAP's average daily trading volume on its bond and currency platforms in the three months to end-June was $712 billion, down 19% on the previous year period. Credit markets remained challenging, said the group. ICAP's customer base may seek to improve profitability. One means of increasing profits is to pay away less commission to intermediaries such as the IDB industry. This may put additional pressure on product pricing. ICAP is exposed to foreign exchange translation risks. The potential for a transaction tax (Tobin tax) across Europe continues to be debated.

Financial Highlights: The group reported a robust balance sheet, cash generative with low borrowings. ICAP stated it is considering issuing a retail bond of up to £50 million to diversify its sources of funding.

First quarter interim statement: ICAP declared that broking activity was subdued as the ongoing Eurozone crisis, the Queen's Jubilee and regulatory uncertainty reduced trading volumes, although the broker saw strong growth in its post trade services division. We believe that the current market consensus opinion of a strong hold will remain in place for the time being. Overall, group revenue for the first quarter was 9% lower when compared to the same quarter a year earlier. Moving forward, management said it is well positioned for growth in the medium term, based on the strength of its diversified business model, its strong cashflow generation and the forthcoming changes in the regulatory environment. ICAP's results were announced on the day of its Annual General Meeting.

Formed following the merger of Garban and Intercapital in 1999, ICAP plc is a UK based inter-dealer money broker, the largest in the world, carrying out transactions for financial institutions rather than private individuals. ICAP plc isheadquartered in London, and operates from London, New York (Jersey City) and Tokyo with offices in a further 21 smaller financial centres such as Madrid and Sydney. The Company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index

Thorntons Direct sales were broadly flat at £0.8m.

Chocolate retailer Thorntons said total sales in the fourth quarter improved 7.8 per cent to £24.7m as action taken to revitalise its brand starts to deliver improvements in a difficult trading environment. Own Store like-for-like sales during the nine-week period increased by 0.7%. Overall sales in Own Stores declined £0.7m to £13.7m following the closure of 36 stores during the year. Chief executive Jonathan Hart commented: "Although we are encouraged by this performance, this nine week period contributes less than 12% to our annual sales and we continue to remain cautious about the outlook for the coming year." "Trading initiatives in our Own Stores, implemented since our strategic review, combined with new product launches have led to some improvement in underlying sales." We anticipate profit before tax, impairment and onerous lease charges for the full year to be in line with our expectations, the group said. Franchise sales fell to £0.9m after sales were adversely affected by the administration of Clinton Cards. Thorntons had franchises in 30 Birthdays stores and 16 Clinton Cards stores.

Vp, the equipment rental specialist, has acquired the business and assets of two equipment rental activities from Balfour Beatty Group. The purchase was made for a cash consideration of £4.0m. Under the transaction, Hire Station, a division of Vp, has acquired Balfour Beatty survey, safety and communication equipment rental business activity, which operates from both London and Glasgow. The acquisition includes a minimum three-year framework agreement for the supply of these services to Balfour Beatty in the UK. In addition, the UK Forks division of Vp has acquired Balfour Beatty's plant rental business activities operating from depots in Croydon and Exeter. The acquisitions will be integrated into the respective Vp divisions. Jeremy Pilkington, Chairman of Vp, said: "These acquisitions represent important developments for Hire Station and UK Forks and we look forward to further strengthening our business relationship with the Balfour Beatty Group following this transaction

dotDigital Group, which provides Software as a Service (SaaS) is "extremely pleased" with its performance during the year ended June 30th and now anticipates that full-year revenues and pre-tax operating profits before IFRS 3 adjustments will be in line with market forecasts. The firm attributed its performance to continued strong new business sales and growth in recurring monthly revenues from existing clients. Revenues are set to be 32% higher than in the previous year. Cash at the year-end was around £4.0m. The Agency Services & Search saw growth of 16% while the SaaS Email Marketing Revenues & Email Managed Service grew 36%.

Charlemange Capital, an independent asset management group, posted a 2.2% decline over six months in group assets under management (AuM) at $2.3m, as at June 30th, while net management fees fell 7.6% to $9.7m on the previous six months ($10.5m). However, the group remains well-capitalised with a strong balance sheet. The company attributed the declines to a softening of emerging markets during the latter two thirds of the half year period, but said it had continued to improve operational efficiency and to take action on costs.

Imagelinx, which puts companies' logos onto printed packaging, lost a third of its share price on Wednesday after admitting that its revenue in May and June 2012 has seen a "sudden and marked deterioration", which the firm blamed on the current economic uncertainty in Europe. Revenue was below the levels seen in the first four months of the year, which were ahead of budget, but the company emphasised that earlier cost realignment work has gone "a long way to mitigating the impact of these low trading levels" and said the group has been able to reduce its costs further. "While we expect to see a recovery in turnover this is unlikely to be before the end of the third quarter of 2012," the firm said. However, "a modest recovery in turnover should return the group to profitability".

HaloSource, the clean water technology company, has reported "solid progress" during the first half of 2012, generating six-month revenue of $5.8m, an increase of 7.0% compared to the same period the previous year. In particular significant gains were seen in its two main growth divisions, drinking water and environmental water, following improving results since the implementation of its new strategic plan. Water Clarification revenues rose 8.0% to $4.9m, while Water Purification revenues leapt 41% to $0.7. However, Antimicrobial Coatings revenue was $0.2m, down 53% from 2011. Cash levels at the end of the period were $8.0m.

Mediterranean Oil & Gas fell slightly on Wednesday morning after it said production at its onshore Italy gas fields was lower than expected due to maintenance on the surface production facilities of one of its assets. The company plans to complete the maintenance work during the third quarter. Total revenues for the second quarter came in at €4.2 million, the same as the previous three months

Bullabulling Gold has upped its resource estimated for the firm's Gibraltar Project by 10%. The company said there was potential to expand the resource at the site and it would evaluate the mining of Gibraltar as a satellite mine to its main Bullabulling project as part of an ongoing prefeasibility study.

International Mining and Infrastructure said it had snapped up a 3.9% stake in Afferro Mining for £2m - its first investment in a junior African iron ore developer. The firm said it planned to turn this into a strategic stake though a planned tie up between Afferro and its strategic partner African Iron Ore Group. Investors welcomed the deal, pushing shares up almost 4%.

Things appear to be mostly tickety-boo at Tikit, the provider of software solutions to the legal and accountancy professions, though sales in North America have not grown as fast as hoped. Once all the numbers have been totted up, total revenues in the first half of 2012 are likely to be similar to revenues in the corresponding period of 2011 but, importantly, will comprise a larger proportion of products developed in-house, which offer the company a higher margin. Tikit-owned software sales of Template Management System and Partner for Windows PMS solutions, have been particularly successful, the group said, as have those of Autonomy's iManage document management solution. "These sales provide Tikit with a healthy order book of services based revenue for the second half," the pre-close period trading update revealed. Things have not been all-rosy in North America, where the company has been making a big marketing push for its Tikit-owned software. Sales in the first half of the year were slower than expected, but the group is expecting stronger sales in the second half in the USA on the basis of a "good pipeline of opportunities". Cash generation by the group in the first half was described as "excellent" and the net cash at June 30th was significantly higher than a year earlier, even after taking into account higher dividends paid to shareholders and the purchase of shares for the employee benefit trust.

As of June 30th 2012, the company maintained a net cash position of over €4m and continues to see significant opportunities for further growth, both in mobile marketing and mobile entertainment.

Mobile marketing and digital entertainment company InternetQ has continued its strong organic growth and anticipates first half 2012 revenue to comfortably exceed 30m euros, representing organic growth of over 50 per cent. In addition, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation and after tax profitability are both also expected to be in accordance with market forecasts. "The company's continued revenue growth stems from strong business momentum in both existing and new markets, with important new contracts in Russia, Pakistan, Thailand and Turkey," the firm said. "Revenue diversification continues, with Asia and Africa growing faster than the rest of the markets."