Updates from Rio Tinto and Balfour Beatty
The FTSE 100 gained 26.4 points on Tuesday, taking it to 6,392.6. Some of the travel industry saw some respite with BA owner IAG surging 4.78% to 339.60p (though the stock has taken some hard hits in the last month). Cruise operator Carnival climbed 2.69% to 2213p. However fashion player Burberry saw investors take profits following yesterday's new numbers with its shares falling 3.65% to 1425p.
Across the water the Dow Jones lost 5.8 points to 16,315.1 despite a 2.1% climb from Intel and a 1.5% lift for Boeing.
First this morning, third quarter results from miner Rio Tinto. It claims record quarterly and year to date iron ore shipments, production and rail volumes. Rio is upping its copper guidance on the back of mined copper production being 15% higher than in the first nine months of 2013,
Exploration and evaluation expenditure was $566 million in the first nine months of 2014, sustaining savings made last year it says. 2014 global production guidance for iron ore is unchanged at 295 million tonnes.
Rio Tinto shares have surged following merger speculation with Glencore. However Rio's share price is down almost 7% on a year-to-date basis.
Next, Balfour Beatty says it has found a new boss following Andrew McNaughton's departure, after a prolonged search. The new man is Leo Quinn from QinetiQ. Quinn will take a basic annual salary of £800,000, plus benefits.
Balfour recently had to issue a profits warning - its third in 2014 - after chasing off a proposed merger with Carillion. Its shares have tumbled more than 44% in the last year (currently at 148.70p).
Balfour exec chairman Steve Marshall says Quinn has the breadth of experience "and the drive to lead our company through the next stage of its development. I am confident that Balfour Beatty will thrive under Leo's leadership."
Lastly Weir says it has entered into an agreement to acquire Trio Engineered Products, a Chinese-American manufacturer of crushing and separation equipment for the mining markets, for an enterprise value of £138m.
It will be funded from existing bank facilities and should see post tax returns (before integration costs) exceeding Weir's cost of capital in the first full year of ownership, Weir claims.
"We'll use," says Weir boss Keith Cochrane, "our Group's unrivalled global capability to promote Trio's range of complementary products, extending our addressable market and offering our mining customers a wider range of highly engineered equipment and services."
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