LONDON (ShareCast) - Footsie staged a modest rally as the morning session closed, but remains in the red with gains for oil stocks being offset by weak transport firms as the price of crude hits new highs.

Oil stocks dominate the risers led by Cairn, Tullow and BG. Cairn was also boosted by an upgrade to ‘outperform’ from ‘in-line’ at Cazenove.

However, crude near $142 a barrel is bad news for fuel-guzzling transport stocks such as British Airways and the cruise operator Carnival. Both are among Footsie worst performers.

Miners are also going well helped by higher metals prices with Kazakhmys and BHP Billiton prominent.

London Stock Exchange is the worst performer again with traders deeply unimpressed by its "deep pool" exchange tie-up with Lehmans. Reports that rival deep pool project Turquoise is set to launch in mid-July has added to the concerns.

JP Morgan has lowered its rating on Home Retail Group to ‘underweight’ from ‘neutral’ saying that the Argos and Homebase owner is likely to feel the impact of inflation.

ABN Amro has lowered its rating on Wolseley to ‘sell’ from ‘hold’, saying the building supplies group is likely to breach bank some of its covenants.

Defence firm BAE Systems has appointed Ian King as chief executive, to replace Mike Turner, with effect from 1 September 2008. The group announced in October 2007 that Turner would retire at the end of August 2008. King has been chief operating officer of BAE since January 2007, with responsibility of its UK and Rest of World businesses.

Tesco is about to start a new price war among the supermarkets according to the Times and will reduce the price of 3,000 items by up to 50% from Monday. Asda, meanwhile, has promised to sell ten staple items, including bread, eggs and butter, for only 50p from today.

Life assurance company Prudential has decided not to proceed with a reattribution of its Inherited Estate held in the Prudential Assurance with profits fund. "Our overriding priority is to maintain the long-term financial security of the With-Profits fund and to continue delivering strong performance for the benefit of our policyholders," it said.

Bus and train group National Express reports a good start to 2008 and expects "significant year on year earnings growth for the half year and full year."

BBA Aviation's trading is on track. Chief executive Simon Pryce said the group continues to perform satisfactorily despite a volatile and difficult economic environment in North American markets, but the shares fell even so.

Housebuilder Berkeley lifted full year profits by 3% to £194.3m, on revenues of £991m up 8%. At the year-end, it held forward sales of £1.2bn with gearing of less than 1%. "This, along with Berkeley's enviable land bank which now has 31,365 plots and gross margin of £2.7bn, provides a superb platform from which Berkeley can take full advantage of the current market conditions," it said.

Oilexco surged to an all-time high Friday as news of a significant dual zone oil and gas-condensate discovery in the North Sea coincided with record oil prices. The £2bn company said its wholly owned subsidiary Oilexco North Sea Limited and partners BG Group, Hess and BP made the find at Moth, in Block 23/21 in the UK Central North Sea.

Legacy software specialist Micro Focus lifted full year profits by 34% to $88.6m, from $66.2m, on revenues up by a third to $228.2m. The defensive characteristics of our business model, combined with the relevance and compelling nature of our solutions lead us to view 2009 with confidence, it added.

Security alarms specialist Visonic expects to report a ‘substantial improvement’ in profit for the six months to 30 June, despite the continuing adverse impact of the strength of the Israeli shekel.

Shipping company Global Oceanic said it has recommended a £68.3m offer from Newport Holdings.Under the terms of the offer, Global Oceanic will receive 170.5p per share.

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