Rabu, 25 September 2013

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London Market Report

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(Noon): Energy shares fell following a pledge by Labour leader Ed Miliband to freeze gas and electricity bills.

On Tuesday, Mr Miliband promised that energy bills would not go up for 20 months if Labour won the 2015 election.

The chairman of British Gas owner Centrica told the BBC that Labour's plan could potentially cause "economic ruin" for energy firms.

Shares in British Gas owner Centrica fell 5.1%, while SSE dropped 4.6%. The FTSE 100 fell 30.03 points to 6,541.43.

However, the biggest faller in the FTSE 100 was cruise firm Carnival. Its shares dropped 6.5% after both Exane BNP Paribas and UBS downgraded their ratings on the stock.

The downgrades came a day after Carnival had reported a 30% fall in third-quarter profits.

Shares in Laura Ashley sank 8.5% after the company reported an 11% drop in half-year pre-tax profits to £7.4m.

The retailer said like-for-like sales fell 2.2% over the six month period, with fashion sales down 6.6%.

On the currency markets, the pound rose 0.3% against the dollar to $1.6054, but was unchanged against the euro with one pound buying 1.1875 euros.



Source: BBC News - Business http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11899862#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa