At midday the FTSE 100 was up 35.1 points at 6,102.6.

Volume was ok with 1.38 billon shares changing hands in 130,532 deals.


Today’s look at individual Stocks:


UK satellite giant BSkyB said it signed an agreement over premiership football with Setanta. This will allow BSkyB subscribers to watch the Irish pay TV group's coverage of top English football.
The deal follows the recent Premier League auction, which saw BSkyB and Setanta win the right to broadcast 92 and 46 live matches per season respectively over a three-year period, starting in August 2007.


HMV Group Plc expects to see its Full Year underlying profit in the middle of analysts' range. HMV Group Plc (the music and Waterstone's books retailer) said it expects to report profit before tax and exceptional costs for the year to April 29 2006 in the middle of the range of analysts' expectations, which is £93-103 million.

In a trading update the group said

Total sales for the full year fell by 1.5% at constant exchange rates, and were down 5.7% on a like-for-like basis

Airport operator BAA PLC reported a 7.8% year on year increase in passenger traffic for April at its UK airports to 12.4 million, boosted by Easter falling late this year. The group said that taking March and April together, which includes Easter last year, traffic was up 3.2%.



Vodafone shares were on the up this morning, gaining 4p at 130p, as Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein reiterated its buy rating following reports that Verizon Communications Inc could be in talks to buy Vodafone's Verizon Wireless stake. Earlier today, The Daily Telegraph reported that Verizon Communications is looking to buy back Vodafone's 45% stake in the Verizon Wireless venture for $38 billion, but Vodafone values the assets at $50 billion. Dresdner Kleinwort said

a disposal plus cash return to shareholders would be highly free cash flow per share accretive and potentially significantly EPS accretive

Cadbury also climbed higher up 6p at 551p as the old lady rumour mill revived speculation that US peer Kraft Foods could be circling the confectioner.


DSG International climbed higher also, gaining 4p at 193p as Deutsche Bank reiterated its buy rating, with an increased target price of 225 pence from 210.


Broker comments affected Kingfisher stock, up 4p at 240p as UBS upgraded to buy from 'neutral', saying early indicators of a recovery in housing transactions looked good.


Supermarkets were positive this morning, shrugging off news that the OFT has referred the grocery sector to the Competition Commission as the news was widely expected.

Sainsbury was up 2p at 347p. Tesco was up 4p at 320p and Morrison was 1p higher at 190p


In stark contrast, Man Group topped the loser’s board today. Man shares fell by 83p at 2,642 after its US brokerage arm Man Financial was accused of fraud following the collapse of hedge fund Philadelphia Alternative Asset Management. Man Financial, which acted as broker to the hedge fund, vigorously denies the allegations.


Mining stocks eased back as commodity prices came off recent highs. Xstrata was the biggest casualty on profit-taking after three sessions of triple-digit gains as Citigroup pointed out that the shares may suffer if it needs a rights issue to acquire Falconbridge. Xstrata was down by 43p at 2,322, with Kazakhmys loosing 5p at 1,249. Antofagasta was down 12p at 2,512 and BHP Billiton also down by 6p to 1,171.


Woolworth’s have been upgraded to hold from sell by Deutsche Bank on valuation, with an increased target price of 33.5p from 31.5p.


The Portfolio:


A target price increase lifted shares in Carphone Warehouse (CPW) today up 6p at 361p as Bear Sterns hiked its price target to 415p from 375p, tipping the group as the next FTSE 100 promotion candidate.
CSR (CSR) was down 35p at 1455.00p on profit taking, despite news that Lehman Brothers also noted the blue tooth group as 'overweight' with a price target of 1550.00p.

Wolfson (WLF) followed CSR and is down 1.84% at 545.75p.

Shares ended the session lower on news that Iran has ignored UN demands to halt its nuclear programme. This news is extremely important and today marks the start of a very long road, again!
A bit of a bank holiday weekend feel about the stock market today. A down day across the board again which is not always a bad thing. It is much better for stocks to open and close down some days and then re-bound more slowly, this has the effect of making sure there isn't a massive market crash.


The FTSE100 was 36.9 points down today at 6,023.1. The FTSE250 was down 46.9 points at 9,878.7 and the AIM100 down 26.2 points at 6,427.

Volume was strong despite it being the Friday before the bank holiday weekend with 3.01 billion shares changed hands in 329,614 deals.


China's shock announcement to hike interest rates in a bid to cool down its booming economy sent shock waves across oil and mining heavyweights amid fears demand for commodities will slacken. Investors were once again concerned about the growing situation with Iran.


Today’s look at individual Stocks:


BP was down 7p at 676.5p, Shell was down 32p to 1,961p, Cairn was down 31p at 2,326p and BG Group was down 24p at 737p, ahead of first quarter earnings due on Wednesday.


Miners were also under pressure, with Xstrata down 31p at 1,984p, Rio Tinto down 14p at 3,016p and BHP Billiton down 9.5p at 1,129p. Falls however, were limited by the ongoing sky-high commodity prices with gold spiking higher as investors seek a more secure place to put their money ahead of more trouble with Iran.


Yell Group was another casualty of the falling markets today, dropping 15.5p to 514p, as brokers were less than impressed by telephone directories publisher €3.5bn bid for Spanish peer TPI. In response, UBS repeated its reduce advice, as it cautioned the deal takes away from the US growth story and the timing is not ideal given the Competition Commission review on the UK directories market is due sometime in May.


British Sky Broadcasting also closed lower, down 5p at 525.5p, on news the auction for the live English Premiership football rights will now move on to a second round of bidding. This morning the Premier League said it had awarded three of the six packages of 23 games per season to BSkyB. The remaining three packages, covering three years to the end of the 2009/2010 season are set to go to a further round of bidding. The news fuelled fears the re-opening of the auction means BSkyB is facing stiff competition for the remaining packages.


Smith & Nephew was also under pressure after Morgan Stanley downgraded the company to equal-weight from overweight. The shares fell 8.5p to 453.5p.


One stock on the up was Standard Chartered topping the blue chips gainers' board, up 41p at 1,456p, as the sector benefited from a strong performance from Chinese banks overnight after China increased its lending rates.


Life insurer Friends Provident was also on the up, but only slightly, up 0.5p higher at 196.75p, after beating market forecasts with a 26% rise in life and pensions sales in the first quarter. The UK's fourth-biggest listed insurer, said group life and pensions new business for the first three months of 2006 came in at £1.331bn, ahead of the £1.223bn average analyst forecast. In response, Merrill Lynch reiterated its neutral advice and said the results were strong with sales comfortably ahead of its flagged £1.216bn.


GSK was also on the up by a positive broker comment, up 24p at 1,556p, after Morgan Stanley upped its recommendation to overweight from equal-weight following the UK healthcare group's better-than-expected Q1 earnings statement yesterday.


Mitchells & Butlers dropped 3p to 492.25p after announcing a raft of measures aimed at repelling the advances of property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz, whose recent hostile takeover bid was rebuffed by the UK pubs group. The company plans to refinance in the second half of the year and return up to £500m to shareholders in calendar year 2006.


Matalan was also a top performer today, 6.25p higher at 199p, after the retailer was upgraded to in-line from under-perform at Goldman Sachs ahead of results next week.


There shall be no update on Monday as the UK markets are closed due to a bank holiday weekend.