Markets: US markets send FTSE 100 south on Friday
17:15 - There was no way back for the FTSE 100 (UKX) as it closed in the red on Friday with investor sentiment mirroring gloom across the Pond.
The UK benchmark index ended the first full week of the year 25.78 points down at 5636.64, with financials including Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and ICAP (IAP) leading the winners, while miner Fresnillo (FRES) took the wooden spoon.
"The slow retreat turned into a rout during the afternoon, as rumours of multiple downgrades for eurozone states by the ratings agency morphed into hard fact," noted Chris Beauchamp, market analyst at IG Index
"Although at this point we don't know the exact situation, it seems that Germany has escaped the axe, but France looks decidedly at risk. Usually rumours of a downgrade of France are accompanied by frantic denunciations from Paris, but today these have been strangely absent. As a result, people have begun to assume that France's AAA rating has met its Waterloo."
At a glance...
Commodities
Gold: $1,637.36 
WTI crude oil: $98.64
Currencies
GBP/USD: 1.5289
GBP/EUR: 1.2065 
EUR/USD: 1.2669
All changes from 09:00 GMT.
16:56 - US stocks remained firmly in the red as trading continued on Friday, dragging the Dow industrials into negative numbers for the week, on reports of coming downgrades of eurozone nations by ratings company Standard & Poor's.
The Dow Jones was 85 points lower at 12385, a decline that included all but two of its 30 components.
The S&P 500 shed nine points to 1286, with financials hammered hardest among its 10 industry sectors, while the Nadaq was 17 points lower at 2707.
16:37 - SQS Software Quality Systems (SQS) warned that pre-tax profits would be below analysts' expectations, despite revenues being slightly ahead of consensus forecasts.
The company attributed the lower profits to not being able to recover some additional transition costs, not expected to exceed €2 million (£1.7 million), relating to two earlier managed service contracts. SQS said that it was "in ongoing discussions with the clients to recover at least some of those costs in 2012". However, the company did not envisage incurring any further costs.
George O' Connor, analyst at Panmure Gordon, warned that given the previous first-half warning, sentiment on the stock was likely to remain poor. He had a 'hold' recommendation on the stock.
16:23 - Metalrax (MRX) told investors that group performance for the full year to 31 December would be "in line with market expectations".
However, the specialist engineering company warned that it had some weakening in forward order books, but said that it was too early to say whether this was the start of a trend.
Additionally, the company has appointed Caroline Green as finance director with immediate effect. Green has been a member of the senior management team at Metalrax since 2008.
16:01 - Metal explorer Wolf Minerals (WLFE) has received support from the UK government for the development of its Hemerdon Tungsten and Tin project in Devon, south-west England.
The follows an announcement made by Wolf that it was seeking to secure £55 million in senior debt finance facilities to fund the commercial development of the project.
"Wolf is also in discussions with potential off-take partners to provide subordinated debt," confirmed chief executive Humphrey Hale. "The total debt facilities will enable Wolf to minimise the equity component of the funding package required to put the Hemerdon project into production," he added.
15:48 - International Greetings (IGR) announced that trading over the festive period was "in line with management's expectations".
The gift wrap manufacturer confirmed it had had a "strong" Christmas, despite a "challenging trading environment for our customers".
15:34 - The High Court has extended Pathfinder Minerals' (PFP) interim injunction until 10 February, when there will be a further hearing to consider the matter.
The injunction prevented Pathfinder's former director, Jacinto Soares Veloso, his company JV Consultores Internacionais and Diogo Jose Henriques Cavaco, a current director of Pathfinder's subsidiary, Companhia Mineira de Naburi (CMDN) from taking any steps to interfere with the rights of ownership of the company's wholly-owned subsidiary, IM Minerals, in the shares of CMDN.
15:15 - The FTSE 100 (UKX) began to flounder during afternoon trading, giving up gains on the back of mixed results from the Italian debt auction as it mirrored gloomy indexes in the US.
London's blue-chip index was 43 points lower at 5619, with ICAP (IAP) sitting pretty on healthy gains, while the lights went out for International Power (IPR).
At a glance...
Commodities
Gold: $1,632.89
WTI crude oil: $98.31
Currencies
GBP/USD: 1.5283
GBP/EUR: 1.1207
EUR/USD: 1.2659
All changes from 09:00 GMT.
14:57 - US indexes opened to a sea of red amid fresh speculation of ratings downgrades for some European countries, adding to gloom triggered by disappointing results from JP Morgan Chase and Co (JPM).
The Dow Jones slumped 105 points to 12365, while the S&P fell 10 points to 1285 and the Nasdaq gave up 13 points to 2710.
14:33 - Evocutis (EVO) has opened a dedicated skin histology laboratory at its Wetherby site.
"The new laboratory complements Evocutis's existing portfolio of skincare development services of laboratory and clinical testing, and is particularly tightly integrated with the LabSkin™ in vitro skin model production and testing facility," said the company.
14:08 - Sales in department store John Lewis fell by 2.2% year-on-year in the week to 7 January, with the company reminding investors that there was one less trading day than a year ago.
However, Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, reminded investors that there were more John Lewis stores trading than a year ago. Additionally, he noted that while John Lewis was seen as a bellwether for the retail sector, it has been a clear outperformer for some time and that this was the case over Christmas.
"If consumers do retrench, this would increase the already high risk that the economy could contract in the first quarter of 2012," Archer warned.
He also pointed out that the British Retail Consortium, in their December survey, reported that "post-Christmas offers brought large numbers of shoppers out, but that was generally a short-lived hunt for bargains".
13:46 - Ottoman Fund (OTM) has told the buyer of its Kazikli joint venture that it has until 31 March 2012 to pay the remainder of the purchase price.
Ottoman decided to sell its entire interest in the Kazikli joint venture for a $9.5 million (£6.2 million) in cash in April 2011. At that time, the buyer was obliged to pay Ottoman 25% of the purchase price on signing, with the remainder due upon Ottoman's fulfilment of "certain conditions".
The company has promised that all excess cash, including sale proceeds, will be returned to shareholders.
13:19 - Producer output prices fell by 0.2% month-on-month in December, the first drop since June 2010, while core producer prices fell 0.1% month-on-month in December, the third successive decline.
Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, noted that the weakened activity was causing manufacturers to become more circumspect in their pricing, while softer input prices were reducing the pressure on companies to raise their prices to protect their margins.
"The benign set of producer price data will be well received by the Bank of England. The data supports belief that consumer price inflation is headed down sharply over the coming months, and fuels already strong belief that the Bank of England will enact at least £50 billion more quantitative easing in February," he added.
12:55 - Shares in technology group Invensys (ISYS) plunged more than 20% as it issued a profit warning.
"A number of operational issues relating to certain projects within Invensys operations management and Invensys rail will affect performance for the current year," said the company, adding that it now expected reported operating profit for the full year to be significantly below last year.
For the full story, read: Invensys plummets on profit warning.
12:28 - Investors cheered Ted Baker's (TED) "excellent" Christmas trading statement, with the company reporting good performance across all markets.
The clothing retailer posted a 15.7% increase in sales for the eight-week period to 7 January despite "no significant promotional activity pre-Christmas".
For more, read: Ted Baker announces "strong" sales.
12:00 - After a strong start, the FTSE 100 (UKX) moved a little lower on Friday, but stayed in the black as investors remained optimistic over the positive impact of Italy's debt auction on the eurozone as a whole.
The benchmark index was 10 points up at 5672 with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) holding the top spot, while mining giant Fresnillo (FRES) edged into the red.
Chris Beauchamp, market analyst at IG Index, said the are bulls hoping that Rome can emulate Madrid's success yesterday.
"The auction saw yields fall, prompting the bulls to snort approvingly, but demand also dropped, which gave bears something to roar about. Ultimately, the market remained somewhat unimpressed, with the FTSE 100 remaining some distance from its early-morning highs."
Looking ahead to the US open, Beauchamp expects the Dow to open slightly down.
"The first reading of the January Michigan confidence index is out later today, while JP Morgan (JPM) is the first of the major American banks to report its quarterly figures. An optimistic outlook from the bank could breathe new life into the markets, which have yet to push out of the narrow trading range seen so far in 2012,” he noted.
At a glance...
Commodities
Gold: $1,640.93
WTI crude oil: $99.25
Currencies
GBP/USD: 1.5342
GBP/EUR: 1.1996
EUR/USD: 1.2788
All changes from 09:00 GMT.
11:44 - Motive Television (MTV) has signed an agreement with Digital Media Europe (DME) to pursue opportunities in the licensing and deployment of Motive's Video2Go technology in vertical markets outside the television industry.
Motive's Video2Go improves the efficiency of customer interaction by enabling brand owners to deliver self-created, self-owned, advertising-based content direct to customers' mobile devices.
DME will initially focus on UK, European and selected global prospects for Motive.
11:21 - Plexus Holdings (POS) has received funding worth £260,000 from Maersk Oil North Sea UK to help develop its 20,000 psi High Pressure/High Temperature (HP/HT) Mudline Tieback wellhead system.
The Tieback system design is expected to help convert HP/HT exploration wells and pre-drilled production wells into either subsea or platform producing wells. According to the company, these wells, which have an estimated cost of between £50 million and £300 million, are currently abandoned after drilling and, to date, there is no other technology in the market which can 'save' or 'convert' such wells.
Testing and manufacturing of the prototype is underway. Assembly is scheduled for the third quarter of the financial year, with final deployment and commercialisation targeted for mid-2012.
10:57 - Shares in San Leon Energy (SLE) fell slightly as the company confirmed it had temporarily suspended operations in two test wells in its Tarfaya Oil Shale project in Morocco.
Chairman Oisin Fanning said: "...we have decided that San Leon should not be taking any environmental risk whilst we aim to continue to prove up the in-situ extraction concept of the Tarfaya oil shale resources and to rapidly progress toward operations of the processing pilot plant designed and built for the project."
Read: San Leon shares dip after drilling suspension, for the full story.
10:25 - Spectris (SXS) announced that strong trading in 2011 will result in "record sales and operating profit".
Sales for the full year are expected to be approximately 23% higher than in 2010, or approximately 15% on a like-for-like basis. Adjusted operating profit is expected to be about £200 million; margins in each of its four segments will exceed 15%, with the largest year-on-year increase in the Test and Measurement segment.
The company's full-year results will be published on 17 February.
09:59 - Mariana Resources (MARL) saw its shares move higher as it announced that its recent drilling results indicated potential to expand the maiden gold resource of 519,000 ounces at its flagship Las Calandrias gold-silver project.
The statement came as the company published results from 21 of the final 28 holes from a 47-hole, 6,181 metre Phase IV drill programme at Las Calandrias, situated in the Santa Cruz province, southern Argentina.
For the full story, read: Las Calandrias drilling results boost Mariana.
09:28 - There was good news for contracting firm WS Atkins (ATK) and infrastructure group Balfour Beatty (BBY) as they were announced as the preferred suppliers for two of Network Rail's signalling renewal framework contracts.
The contracts, for the Area 4A Anglia and Kent and Area 4B Sussex and Wessex regions will run for seven years and are a vital part of Network Rail's programme to maintain and modernise its signalling systems. Services provided by Atkins will include specialist signalling systems design, installation, testing and commissioning, and associated power, telecommunications and ancillary civil engineering.
For Atkins there is revenue potential of up to £400 million over seven years, starting from 2 April 2012.
09:00 - The FTSE 100 (UKX) surged upwards at the open on Friday, following in Asia's footsteps.
The blue-chip index moved up 34 points to 5696.
Financial stocks led the gains with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) soaring almost 6%, while Barclays (BARC) and Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) saw their shares increase by about 3%. The movement in the banking shares came ahead of Italy's long-term debt auction.
Italy is seeking to sell up to €4.75 billion (£3.98 billion) of bonds, with investors positive that it will follow Spain's success from yesterday. Spain sold twice the planned amount of bonds on Thursday at lower rates.
Tesco (TSCO) was once again holding the wooden spoon, down almost 3%, after it shocked investors with a profit warning yesterday.
Chemring Group (CHG) has been awarded a €38 million contract to deliver pyrotechnic illumination mortar rounds from 2012 to 2014.
The contract amended and extended existing contracts that were awarded in 2010, which amounted to €24.5 million, and raises the total replacement contracts to €62.5 million.
US markets
US markets continued their upward streak, closing at a five-month high.
However, gains were muted as US retail sales rose at the weakest pace in seven months in December and first-time claims for jobless benefits moved higher last week.
The Dow climbed 22 points to 12471, while the Nasdaq closed up 14 points to 2724.
The S&P 500 continued to test the technical resistance at the 1300 level as it trudged up three points to 1296.
Looking ahead, investors will be eagerly waiting for JPMorgan Chase and Co's (JPM) results. Additionally, US international trade figures will be released at 13:30 GMT, with the second, provisional reading for the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index due at 14:45 GMT.
At a glance...
Asian markets
Nikkei 225: 8500 ( 114)
Hang Seng: 19204 ( 109)
Shanghai Composite: 2244 ( 30)
Commodities
Gold: $1,644.16
WTI crude oil: $99.96
Currencies
GBP/USD: 1.5393
GBP/EUR: 1.1954
EUR/USD: 1.2860
08:00 - The FTSE 100 (UKX) opens at 5662.42.
