LONDON (ShareCast) - Having taken a hammering yesterday in the wake of the gloomy manufacturing news from China, miners are bouncing back this morning, dragging the Footsie higher.

Of all the companies in the mining sector, Xstrata and Glencore are likely to be closely watched ahead of the deadline on Monday relating to their proposed merger.

Also in the spotlight will be UK public finance data for August, which will be published at 9:30. The consensus is expecting Public Sector Net Borrowing excluding interventions - PSNBx in economists' jargon - to have been £15bn and PSNB to have been £13.2bn. The Public Sector Net Cash Requirement (PSNCR) is expected to come in at -£5.5bn.

Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King said in a Channel 4 interview last night that if there was a genuine excuse then the government could afford to allow the burden of public debt to continue to rise after 2015-16.

Sage goes for a Brazilian

The Sage Group has acquired EBS Empresa Brasileira de Sistemas, a provider of accounting, business management and tax software in Brazil. The acquisition will cost the group up to £10.6m, including a performance related sum of £1.8m.

The Home Affairs Committee, the group of MPs investigating G4S's failure to fulfil all of its Olympic Games contractual requirements, has called on the security firm to waive its fee. "G4S should waive its £57m management fee and also compensate its staff and prospective staff who it treated in a cavalier fashion," the damning report says. G4S has already revealed that it expects to swallow a £50m-or-so loss on the contract. The committee's verdict seems to have been widely priced in by the market, judging by the muted share price reaction.

Property company British land has offloaded seven food stores to institutional investors. The company sold the gaggle of supermarkets at prices in line with March valuations to raise £118m, of which British Land's share is £62m. The stores were sold at net initial yields of between 4.95% and 5.7%.

Going the way of the buggy whip seller

Things just keep getting worse for HMV, the retailer which left it too late to move away from its dependency on selling CDs, DVDs and books in their physical forms. The group saw like-for-like sales decline 11.6% year-on-year in the 20 weeks to September 15th. Including the impact of previously announced store closures, total group sales declined by 14.8%.

"The like-for-like decline was less marked towards the end of the period and we should be helped in the remainder of the year by a strong pipeline of new releases in the music, DVD and games markets ahead of Christmas," said Trevor Moore, the group's newish Chief Executive.

Tanfield, a global manufacturer of Powered Access equipment and an investor in Smith Electric Vehicles, slumped after plans to float Smith were binned.

"We received significant interest from potential investors, however, we were unable to complete a transaction at a valuation or size that would be in the best interests of our company and its existing shareholders," said Bryan Hansel, Smith's Chief Executive Officer.

Other markets

The price of oil is back on the rise. The most widely traded futures contract for Brent crude is up 73 cents to $110.76 a barrel.

With investors regaining their appetite for risk, gilts are spurned. The yield on the benchmark 10-year gilt is up to 1.83% from 1.80% overnight. Yields move inversely to prices.

FTSE 100 - Risers
Vedanta Resources (VED) 1,082.00p +2.66%
Evraz (EVR) 265.70p +1.88%
Pearson (PSON) 1,201.00p +1.61%
IMI (IMI) 948.00p +1.44%
Kazakhmys (KAZ) 734.50p +1.38%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,981.00p +1.36%
Amec (AMEC) 1,157.00p +1.22%
Polymetal International (POLY) 1,100.00p +1.20%
Fresnillo (FRES) 1,851.00p +1.20%
Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,049.00p +1.16%

FTSE 100 - Fallers
National Grid (NG.) 687.00p -1.01%
Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 2,387.00p -0.50%
ITV (ITV) 90.75p -0.44%
G4S (GFS) 266.10p -0.41%
British Land Co (BLND) 530.50p -0.38%
Bunzl (BNZL) 1,109.00p -0.36%
Land Securities Group (LAND) 769.50p -0.32%
ARM Holdings (ARM) 577.50p -0.26%
United Utilities Group (UU.) 728.50p -0.21%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 639.00p -0.16%

FTSE 250 - Risers
NMC Health (NMC) 197.90p +4.16%
Ruspetro (RPO) 108.00p +3.85%
Bumi (BUMI) 258.60p +3.40%
Essar Energy (ESSR) 121.60p +2.88%
Imagination Technologies Group (IMG) 522.00p +2.05%
Ferrexpo (FXPO) 213.70p +1.86%
TR Property Inv Trust Sigma Shares (TRYS) 71.50p +1.78%
Hochschild Mining (HOC) 488.70p +1.60%
Dairy Crest Group (DCG) 345.90p +1.59%
Templeton Emerging Markets Inv Trust (TEM) 558.00p +1.45%

FTSE 250 - Fallers
JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 713.00p -2.26%
Phoenix Group Holdings (DI) (PHNX) 511.00p -1.73%
Spirent Communications (SPT) 162.60p -1.22%
PayPoint (PAY) 745.00p -1.06%
Perform Group (PER) 386.00p -1.03%
Petra Diamonds Ltd.(DI) (PDL) 106.00p -1.03%
BBA Aviation (BBA) 203.30p -1.02%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 63.80p -0.93%
Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (MLC) 487.60p -0.93%
Mitchells & Butlers (MAB) 284.30p -0.91%

JH

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