More Short News

dateline: Paris

  *Great news about H1 profits from Barclays which stunned the nattering nabobs of negativism by reporting a mere 34% drop in net to GBP 2.8bn. This it says came about from a more "conservative" writedown policy which cut off GBP 1.72 bn. Most of the trouble was at its Barclays Capital investment bank. The BCS head, Bob Diamond, took a poke atthe forecasts of doom noting that "criticism  comes from people with other interests" meaning rival banks.

  The dividend of 11.5 pence per share will be maintained unchanged. That should be reassuring along withgoodresults from BNP and Commerzbank yesterday. Yes, US financial woes are crossing the Atlantic but, no, European banks are better capitalized (with exceptions.) Even Swiss Re, which suffered badly from its love affair with FNMA, could afford to buy up BCS's unwanted insurance sub.

   *After the market closed yesterday, Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (RIO) reported Q2 profits up 22% to $5.01 bn or $1.02/sh, well ahead of forecasts of 91cents/sh. The Brazilian metals giant was saved by the higher prices of iron ore from the impact of declining nickel prices. In aftermarket trading it went up and this will go on today.

    *Coco Cola Hellenic will buy the southern Italian coke bottler Socib for euros 270 mn to boost its Italian client base by 12 mn people in the hotter south. Analysts greeted the news by upgrading CCH to outperform (Thomson average).

     *BCE which is being bought out by yearend, reported a boost in Q2 sales thanks to wireless penetration going up against rivals. I said when we bought this merger play that we would be happy to keep the stock; still true.

     *From Canada too news of a raised dividend for oilfield services firm Computer Modelling which will now pay us 48 cents, 20% more, after the 2:1 split I reported on yessterday. DC reader GH says he made 9% (not counting dividends) on this share, written up by Vivian after it was tipped by Chris Loew from Osaka, where he covers Japan for us. CMG.Toronto or CMDXF.PK.

     *Final Canadian note: Bombardier was raised to outperform by analysts at UBS who now expect a target of $10.50 vs 8.75 earlier.

     *Glaxo reported at an AIDS conference that its powerful antiretroviral Abacovir does not increase the risk of heart attacks in patients taking it, contrary to earlier reports by a longitudinal study. GSK used its own data on thousands of users. Beware of longitudinal studies comparing apples to oranges. Finally GSK is becoming proactive here.

     Apologies are in order over the messy model portfolios. Apparently this is not targetting me; all the Rightside publications' performances are being misreported. You still should complain to alert management to your concerns. As noted the two for one split for CMDXF is not showing and almost all the current prices for our stocks are showing wrong numbers.