LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - 1630:Close Stocks tracked Wall Street higher, brushing off losses on the Continent as the president of the Philly Fed, Patrick Harker argued for near-term patience when it came to tightening interest rates again. Merlin Entertainments did best on the top flight index after naming a new chief financial officer. IAG gained on the back of an upgrade out of analysts at BofA-Merrill Lynch. StanChart sank to the bottom of the pile after analysts at Morgan Stanley reiterated their underweight stance on the shares. Crude oil futures on the other hand surrendered early gains to trade lower as analysts took a sceptical view on the possibility that Iran might agree to cap its output.






1456: Ascential, the business publisher and events group previously called Top Right and before than Emap, has had its credit upgraded by S&P after it was floated last week by owners The Guardian and Apax Partners. S&P said following the IPO and related refinancing of senior secured facilities, the company reduced its debt to about £265m, with Apax cutting its equity holding to about 35.6%. S&P lifted its long-term corporate credit rating on Ascential Holdings to 'B+' from 'B'.

1450: The Footsie is holding higher with shares of Merlin Entertainments, IAG and BP having moved into the top slots.

1330: The New York Fed's regional manufacturing gauge dropped from -19.37 points in the month before to a reading of -16.64.

1330: Three-month copper futures are higher by 0.5% to $4,580.25 per metric tonne on the LME.

1222: Commenting on Russian and Saudi plans to freeze output analysts at Barclays said that while the plan looked difficult to implement its significance lay in that it was the first time since November 2014 that OPEC had acted to insert some uncertainty about Saudi strategy into the minds of oil market participants, the analysts added.

1122: According to an unconfirmed report, an OPEC delegate has told Bloomberg and the FT that Saudi Arabia may be open to taking more actions to prop up the price of oil.

1012: So-called aggregate financing grew by a record 3.42trn yuan (£362.1bn) last month, according to the People's Bank of China. That was far more than the 2.2trn yuan which analysts had penciled in. Chinese lenders opened the spigot on lending in January, with the widest measure of credit far surpassing analysts' projections.

0930: The consumer price index retreated by 0.8% month-on-month in January and increased by 0.3% year-on-year, according to ONS. Economists had penciled in a fall of 0.7% on the month and a 0.3% rise year-on-year.

0912: The outlook for asset quality at Asian banks has deteriorated since StanChart's strategic review was carried out, as a result of slowing economies and lower commodity and property prices, analysts at Morgan Stanley said on Tuesday. As a result, the broker's analysts upped their estimates for credit costs, bringing them to approximately 42% to 30% below the analyst consensus for StanChart's earnings per share in 2016 and 2017. Morgan Stanley reiterated its recommendation to 'underweight' and lowered its bear case to 261p.

0901: Stocks have started higher on the back of another sharp rise in crude oil futures and amid overnight gains in Chinese equities. Oil and mining shares are predictably at the top of the leaderboard. According to Bloomberg, Russia's and Saudi Arabia's energy ministers are due to meet today in Doha, Qatar. StanChart is moving lower, possibly weighed down by negative comments out of Morgan Stanley. CPI data are scheduled for release today in the UK at 09:30. Investors will also be closely watching three Fed speakers who are due to make speeches later in the day. FTSE 100 up 39.41 points to 5,863.91.

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