LONDON (ShareCast) - Blue chips are tipped to rise in first dealings after good gians for Wall St and Asia overnight. Traders expect Footsie to add 60 points.

Marks & Spencer could be busy ahead of the AGM later today where Stuart Rose faces a rough ride over his combining the chairman and chief executive posts.

Housebuilder Bovis is to shed 40% of its staff and cut its interim dividend by 75% to 5p to counter what it says is the worst market backdrop it has seen for many years. Completions in the first half fell by 32% to 851 homes. Gross housing profit margins were approximately 26% for the half year, a decline of some 6% against the comparable period, though the group has not written down its landbank as yet.

WPP has launched a bid of 260.6p per share for market research group Taylor Nelson. The bid consists of 173p in cash and 0.1889 of a new WPP share. Based on the closing price of 464p per WPP share on 8 July 2008, the offer, which counters a nil-premium merger agreed with Gfk, values TNS at approximately £1.082bn. WPP added it expects cost synergies of at least £52m per annum by 2011.

London Stock Exchange's revenue for the first quarter rose 8% to £178m or by 3% in constant currency. Average daily order book cash equities trading for the combined UK and Italian markets grew 17% to 936,000 trades, with trading on SETS up 34% to 673,000 trades per day and equities order book trading on Borsa Italiana down 12% to 263,000. The total value traded on the combined cash equities markets declined 8%.

Tullow Oil estimates its Jubilee field in Ghana could hold as much as 1.8bn barrels and will start production in 2010. "The recoverable resources of the field are now estimated to range from 500m barrels up to 1.8bn barrels," it said. Tullow added that group working interest production for the first half of 2008 averaged 70,550 boepd, 1% higher than the 2007 average. Sales volumes for the first half of 2008 averaged 60,000 boepd.

The Independent this morning reports that Primark's flagship Oxford Street store has generated sales of nearly £200m since it opened in April last year.The revelation comes ahead of a third-quarter trading update for Primark's owner Associated British Foods tomorrow, which is expected to show that Primark's sales growth has slowed but remains ahead of its high-street rivals Marks & Spencer and Next.

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