LONDON (ShareCast) - A late rally on the back of Wall Street strength saw Footsie erase most of the day's losses.

Eurozone worries were on the market's mind for much of the day after credit ratings agency Moody's slashed Spain's sovereign debt rating by three notches to a level barely above junk status.

Italy's bond auction went about as well as could be expected in the circumstance. The Mediterranean nation issued a total of €4.5bn of debt in three, seven, and eight-year bonds. It matched its issuance target but had to pay higher yields than on the previous occasion.

The eight-year bonds yielded a rate of 6.13% compared to 5.33% in the prior auction. The yield on the seven-year bond rose to 6.10% from the prior 5.21% and three-year bonds rose to 5.3% from 3.91%.

Sky and BT pay for football deal

On the corporate front, it looks like the Football Association (FA) has been declared the winner in the negotiations over television rights for footie matches from the top division of English football.

British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), which more or less built its UK business on the back of live football, is paying the FA £2.3bn to broadcast live 116 matches over a three year period, starting from the 2013-14 season. The shares took a a dive, with Numis Securities reacting to the cost of the deal by downgrading BSkyB to "add", although Citi is sticking with its "buy" recommendation.

Video-on-demand player BT, the telecoms giant, has paid a pretty penny to muscle in on the Premiership action, paying £738m for the right to broadcast 38 games, around half of which it will be allowed to cherry-pick before Sky. BT ended the day with a bigger loss than BSkyB in percentage terms.

After swooning late yesterday afternoon commodities producer and trader Glencore was on the slide again, along with its proposed merger partner Xstrata. Concerns persist about the proposed merger, which is dependent on shareholders giving the thumbs-up to an eye-popping package of incentives for top executives at Xstrata. Given the slap in the face shareholders gave to the WPP board yesterday as they protested at executive pay, there may be trouble ahead for the combination wags have dubbed 'Glenstrata'.

Irish oil titan Tullow Oil was off the pace after France blocked drilling off the coast of French Guyana on environmental grounds. Tullow, along with Shell and French operator Total has made significant discoveries in the region.

WH Smith, the High Street and travel hub newsagent chain, saw like-for-like sales dip at the start of the second half of its financial year, but the shares rose as the group revealed margins are up.

Mulberry crushed

European IT services provider Computacenter crashed after it warned it will be required to invest significantly over the remainder of the year to cope with increased business levels.

Computacenter Chief Executive Officer Mike Norris said: "While we highlighted the necessity for investment in our statement of April 18th, both the size and scope of the opportunities we have won have increased significantly, requiring us to invest further."

Fashion firm Mulberry also got a handbagging from the market after sparkling figures were deemed to be sup-par. UK full price stores saw like-for-like rise 14% for the 10 weeks to June 9th 2012. Revenue of £168.5m was about £7m short of market expectations, however, while pre-tax profit of £6m was around £1.5m below what the market had been expecting.

Petropavlovsk, the Russia-focused gold group, leapt after the company increased its production target to 700,000 ounces and reduced its cost expectations.


FTSE 100 - Risers
Polymetal International (POLY) 827.00p +3.96%
Admiral Group (ADM) 1,140.00p +3.17%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 229.40p +3.10%
Legal & General Group (LGEN) 119.50p +2.49%
Barclays (BARC) 192.75p +2.36%
ITV (ITV) 71.80p +1.56%
Next (NXT) 3,110.00p +1.30%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 481.20p +1.24%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 1,375.00p +1.10%
Smith & Nephew (SN.) 611.50p +1.07%

FTSE 100 - Fallers
Man Group (EMG) 69.15p -3.96%
GKN (GKN) 175.30p -3.84%
Glencore International (GLEN) 341.70p -3.75%
BT Group (BT.A) 201.70p -3.54%
British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSY) 671.00p -3.52%
Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,298.00p -3.21%
Sage Group (SGE) 247.70p -2.79%
BG Group (BG.) 1,226.00p -2.70%
Fresnillo (FRES) 1,452.00p -2.35%
Xstrata (XTA) 899.60p -2.22%

FTSE 250 - Risers
Petropavlovsk (POG) 469.90p +14.36%
Barr (A.G.) (BAG) 383.50p +9.26%
Talvivaara Mining Company (TALV) 149.50p +8.33%
COLT Group SA (COLT) 123.10p +6.49%
Telecom Plus (TEP) 834.00p +5.10%
Yule Catto & Co (YULC) 183.70p +4.91%
Redrow (RDW) 112.50p +4.85%
F&C Asset Management (FCAM) 76.50p +4.79%
PayPoint (PAY) 740.00p +3.79%
Premier Farnell (PFL) 158.80p +3.66%

FTSE 250 - Fallers
Computacenter (CCC) 313.00p -12.25%
Ruspetro (RPO) 128.50p -7.55%
Bumi (BUMI) 312.50p -5.30%
Kentz Corporation Ltd. (KENZ) 351.50p -4.48%
Aveva Group (AVV) 1,580.00p -3.19%
Cairn Energy (CNE) 280.00p -3.01%
Phoenix Group Holdings (DI) (PHNX) 417.00p -2.84%
Bwin.party Digital Entertainment (BPTY) 123.20p -2.76%
3i Group (III) 178.70p -2.56%
Home Retail Group (HOME) 69.20p -2.33%

JH

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