Chancellor Darling's 50 minute Budget speech was pretty much a damp squib as far as the markets were concerned.
When he stood up the FTSE 100 was up around 80 points. When he stopped, it was 92 points higher. The index started to sag in the middle of his speech, but news of a bid approach for mining group Kazakhmys put some life back into the market. Kazakhmys is now 250p higher at £17.87 after fellow Kazakh group ENRC - which has just been promoted to the leading index - said it had made an informal approach about a possible bid. ENRC is 20p higher at £10.
Back with the budget, pubs groups seem to have shrugged off news of the hefty rise in duty on alcohol, although this may change as the news sinks in. Enterprise Inns is up 9.5p at 399p at the moment, while Punch Taverns is 4.5p better at 608.5p. With the on-trade market suffering as it is at the moment due to a lack of consumer confidence and the smoking ban, this is the last thing the industry needs. Surely it was not all already in the price?
