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National Grid hits record highs: The U.K.’s largest listed utility company, National Grid [LON:NG] continues to enjoy a favourable economic backdrop to its activities. Record low interest rates are reducing costs on its debt pile, while steady inflation allows it to push through price increases to customers. The company said that pretax profits had increased by 12% to £1.18 billion during the first six months ended September. The main driver of the profit performance was cheaper borrowing rates. The utility reported an effective interest rate of 4.5% during the first half, down from 5.3% at the same stage last year. That might not sound like much, but on a net debt pile of £21.7 billion the savings are £114 million. National Grid has stable revenue as it owns and operates gas and electricity distribution networks in the U.K. and some parts of the U.S., and then charges for the use of those networks, which creates a natural monopoly. The value of the gas and electricity network is important to shareholders as it supports the share price. National Grid said its total assets in the U.K. and the U.S. increased in value by £1 billion on six months ago, to more than £39 billion at the end of September. It invested £1.58 billion in new gas and electricity infrastructure during the first half of the year and expects to spend up to £3.3 billion for the full year. The last time Questor looked at National Grid we said investors should hold due to the favourable credit backdrop. The shares have increased more than 6% since then and now trade on a price earnings ratio of 16.7 times, and offer a prospective dividend yield of 4.7% guaranteed to rise with inflation. That leaves the shares at a slight premium to Centrica and SSE, on price/earnings ratios of 14.5 and 13.2 respectively, but they aren’t perfect comparisons. The shares are also at record highs and are overpriced when you consider the forecast earnings growth; as a guide, a utility should trade on around 12 times earnings. What you are getting here is surety of income, and for that reason we keep them as a hold. National Grid at 919p. Questor Says “Hold”.

‘Petrol for a quid’ if oil price slump deepens: “A continued fall in crude prices raises the tantalising – though distant – prospect of getting change from a quid for every litre you buy”, says Prof Stephen Glaister, Director of the RAC Foundation”.

London set to be U.K.’s worst performer over next five years: The wheel of fortune is turning against the capital’s property market, forecasts suggest

Oil prices ended the week in red after OPEC reduced its forecasts for oil demand, stating that demand would fall to 28.2 million barrels per day by the end of 2017. The commodity was further pressurised following Libya’s announcement of beginning production from its largest oilfield and after Saudi Arabia reduced the price of its crude oil to the US. Brent crude oil prices declined 2.9% to $83.39/barrel

Nov 7 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc : * Shell says "at approximately 1 pm on November 7, 2014, the Shell Deer Park manufacturing site experienced a release of hydrocarbon material at its chemical plant * Shell says the affected unit was shut down The facility houses a refinery and a chemical plant Shell reported a vapor release incident in progress at Deer Park facility (Deer Park refinery is a 50-50 joint venture of Shell and Mexico's national oil company, Pemex PEMX.UL) Refinery capacity: 327,000 barrels-per-day (Reporting by Anupam Chatterjee in Bangalore)

Nov 7 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc , the lead partner in the consortium planning the LNG Canada facility on British Columbia's northern coast, said on Friday the project to liquefy natural gas for export to Asia could cost as much as C$40 billion ($35.3 billion) when fully complete. Shell's cost estimate for the LNG Canada facility near Kitimat, British Columbia, was included in the environmental assessment filed with provincial regulators on Friday. The filing begins a 180-day review of the proposal but the company cautioned it and its partners have not yet decided whether to build the plant as it waits on regulatory approvals, a detailed cost estimate and lines up customers for the project's natural gas. "We have ... various different hurdles to get over before making a final investment decision," Susannah Pierce, a spokeswoman for the project, said on a conference call. "We have a number of different tracks that we're following to try to get to a point where we can put together what we are calling a final investment decision package to present to our shareholders." Shell said it believes the facility will cost between C$25 billion and C$40 billion. However, even at the lower end of that range LNG Canada would among the costliest construction projects ever proposed in the country. To be sure, even at the upper end of its estimate, the Canada LNG project is not the most expensive of the 10 such facilities worldwide Shell owns a stake in. The company owns 25 percent of the Chevron Corp-led Gorgon project in Australia. Shell has a one-fourth share of the 15.9 million tonne per year project, which is expected to cost $54 billion. The LNG Canada estimate is for when the project is fully built out, with four trains liquefying as much as 24 million tonnes of Canadian natural gas annually for shipment to the Asian market.

Private landlords to own £1tn of property by 2015: Private landlords in Britain are set to own £1tn worth of homes by late spring 2015, it was predicted on Thursday, as rising house prices and growing appetite from investors drives up the value of the booming buy-to-let sector.

Home improvement lifts Howden and Marshalls: The U.K. housing market may be cooling but the home renovation sector which typically lags house transactions by a few months is still booming. Howden Joinery, the kitchen specialist, and Marshalls, the paving group, both said they now expect to beat profit forecasts for the full year after strong half sales. Howden Joinery said that its kitchen and joinery depots increased revenue by 16.2% in the second half of the year to November 1. The group said it had opened four new depots, resulting in 21 new depots in the U.K. so far this year and bringing the total to 580. Howden is targeting 30 new depots for the full year. Marshalls, a company that specialises in paving for homes and public sector works, said that if current trading continues it will also beat market expectations. The paving company generates about two thirds of its sales from the public sector and a third from home refurbishment. Public sector orders jumped 21% during the first 10 months on the back of strong orders from rail projects and homebuilding. The strong trading led broker Panmure Gordon to upgrade full year pretax profits forecasts by 6% to £22.3 million, giving 9.3p in earnings per share. Howden is trading well but the shares, on 17.5 times forecast earnings, look to have much of the growth in the price for now. Likewise, Marshalls shares, on 22 times forecast earnings, are also pricing in an optimistic view of future sales. As such, both shares remain a hold for now. Howden Joinery at 371p+28.1p Questor Says ‘Hold’.

Mansion tax could wipe 5% off the value of high-end London homes: Mansion tax could wipe an average of 5% off homes worth more than £2 million should Labour win the next general election and make the proposals a reality.

Phil off the grill: Phil Bentley is inhaling the sweet, fresh breeze of freedom. He has engineered a $3 billion deal at Cable & Wireless Communications, the telecoms group he has led for just 10 months. Investors and rivals care a lot – the transaction is of the transformative sort, for good or ill. No one else will give a damn. Least of all, the TV inquisitors who gave Mr Bentley regular grillings when he ran British Gas. Mr Bentley stepped in at CWC after the U.K.-listed, Caribbean-focused group relocated to Miami. Popular predecessor Tony Rice did not fancy relocating. A witch hunt against Bosses at Centrica, Owner of British Gas, was one reason for Mr Bentley to flee the country, with the step-up from divisional Boss to top dog another. But no one gets a bargain in an auction run by JPMorgan. The multiple of trailing earnings to enterprise value is 12.3 times. That compares with 7.4 times for Vodafone and 5 times for CWC, according to S&P CIQ. The company believes the number will be nearer to 10 times when the deal closes next Easter. It is reassuring U.S. cable tycoon John Malone has elected to take shares equivalent to 13% of CWC for his stake in Columbus.

AstraZeneca: priorities: Azip, one of the company’s long-term incentive plans, is based on it. Azip awards are based on a four-year period from the beginning of 2013 to the end of 2016. The hurdles are simple: the dividend must not be cut, and earnings per share must not fall below 1.5 times the dividend. If either hurdle is missed during the period, the whole Azip award is forfeited. The award for Pascal Soriot, the company’s Chief Executive, is 89,960 shares, or £4.1 million at the current price. AstraZeneca’s dividend is $2.80; multiplying that by 1.5 makes $4.20. So, $4.20 is important. One should not exaggerate how important. Azip only represents 25% of the long-term incentives for Mr Soriot. Still: £4.1 million. If the company misses by a% or two, Mr Soriot’s £4.1 million goes wherever incentive payments go when they do not go to Executives. The company also gave a preview of 2015, saying that earnings would fall no lower. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration provided some help on Thursday when it withdrew its earlier support for generic Nexium from Ranbaxy, because that company’s plants were below standard. Other big products, such as Crestor and Seroquel, are in decline. But AstraZeneca’s pipeline, in oncology and diabetes especially, is very promising. That may well be enough.

Songbird soars on takeover approach: Shares in Songbird Estates soared almost 23% on Thursday after the Owner of Canary Wharf Group confirmed speculation that the Qatar Investment Authority and Brookfield Property Partners had made a joint preliminary takeover approach.

Stores cut petrol prices after Treasury warning: Britain’s biggest petrol retailers cut prices after the government warned that they would be monitored to ensure that falling oil prices were passed on to motorists.

Opec forecasts surge in demand driving oil to $100: Oil prices will top $100 a barrel by 2040 to meet a 20% jump in global crude demand, Opec has forecast.

UK Halifax house price index surprisingly fell in October In October, the Halifax house price index unexpectedly eased 0.4% on a monthly basis in the UK, compared to a revised advance of 0.4% in the preceding month. Market anticipations were for the Halifax house price index to climb 0.4%.

OIL PRICE FALL COULD HIKE PETROL DUTY The price of oil has fallen so much that motoring groups have started to worry that the Government will begin to increase petrol duty in order to balance out falling tax revenue from the North Sea. The fuel duty escalator could be re-introduced if oil trades at $75 a barrel. It currently stands at around $82.

The lost decade: House prices stuck at the same level as 2004 once inflated London property market is removed Property prices excluding London no higher than during 2004 But ONS statistics show wages after inflation are also no higher than 2004 Analysis shows prices outside London could take five years to regain peak

Rightmove Plc (RMV.L) Announced in its interim management statement for the period from 01 July 2014 to date, that it has continued to see healthy growth in the last four months, building on its performance in the first half of the year. Average Revenue per Advertiser (ARPA) continues to grow as customers invest more on its advertising products to promote themselves and their clients more strongly. Its audience continues to grow with home hunters visiting more often, and searching and researching more property content than ever as evidenced by page impressions up 7% on the same period last year. The company’s overseas homes advertising business continues to grow strongly with customer numbers up 13% since the first half of the year to over 2,000. Audience figures set new records in the period with nearly 30 million searches, up 40% on last year.

Nationwide taps into hoped-for smartwatch fever with banking app: Nationwide has launched the U.K.’s first financial app that allows their customers to ask their smartwatch to show them their up-to-date bank balance.

Imperial Tobacco a solid defensive option: IMPERIAL Tobacco has once again proven its credentials as a defensive share, with a healthy dividend. Management said reported pretax profits jumped 25% to £1.52 billion in the year ended September. The results were in line with market expectations. The FTSE 100-listed tobacco giant, which makes Davidoff and Gauloises Blondes, sold 294 billion cigarettes in the year ended September 30, a 7% fall. Revenues dropped 6%, to £26.62 billion, in the period. The cigarette maker is also generating plenty of cash, with operating cash flow increasing to £2.55 billion in the year, up from £2.35 billion last year. The level of net debt was cut to £8.1 billion at the end of September, down from £9.1 billion a year earlier. The cost of interest payments fell to 4.9% from 5.1% last year, which may sound small but on £8.1 billion of debt each basis point of interest is worth around £81 million. Imperial has been slowly moving into the growing e-cigarettes sector, and launched its own version this year through its Fontem Ventures unit. It has been behind its main U.K. rival, British American Tobacco (BAT), which launched its first e-cigarette last year. Imperial Tobacco shares have risen more than 18% so far this year, easily outperforming the FTSE 100, which has fallen 4%. Now trading on a forecast price-to-earnings ratio of 12.6 times, they are cheaper than BAT on 17 times earnings, and only marginally above their long-run average PE of about 12 times. Imperial Tobacco at £27.77+110p. Questor Says “Hold”.