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UK stock market morning note (March 18, 2013)

The FTSE 100 is called to open lower this morning following the news of radical plans by Cyprus to impose a bank deposit levy on the country's savings accounts in exchange for a euro10bn bailout from the EU and IMF. However, the move which needs to be passed by the Cypriot parliament has seen the country's Prime Minister seeking to limit the impact on small savers. Overnight we had domestic economic news from Rightmove reporting that asking prices on its website in the early weeks of March increased by 1.7% from the previous month and up by 1.2% on a year ago. In addition, the Markit household finance survey index rose to 39.3 in March, its joint highest level since December 2010 and up from 37.7 in February. There is no other major economic data due for release today. Commodity prices are mixed on the back of the Cyprus news with gold up and copper lower on euro zone concerns. On the foreign exchanges, the euro is lower against the major currencies. It is a quieter start to the week for corporate news, although Marks & Spencer may be in focus on weekend press reports that the Qatar Investment Authority was in the early stages of seeking backers for a potential GBP8bn takeover of the retailer.


Company Announcements

Berkeley Group IMS reports that it remains on course to return GBP568m in cash to shareholders by no later than the first milestone date of 30 September 2015. It added that it is currently ungeared and has a strong land bank in place, factors that give it confidence that it will meet expectations for the year to end April 2013 and its long-term plan to return GBP13 per share to shareholders.

BG Group Jodari Appraisal Well. It has completed the appraisal programme in the Jodari field of Block 1 offshore Tanzania with a drill stem test on the original natural gas discovery well confirming the 'excellent quality' of the Tertiary reservoir. It is currently undertaking a 3D seismic survey to help indentify new offshore targets for its Tanzania exploration programme.