British Prime Minister David Cameron holds his new baby daughter, Florence Rose Endellion Cameron who was born on Tuesday Aug. 24th, while the family were taking their summer holiday near Truro in Cornwall. Florence is the couple's fourth child.

Fruit importer and distributor Fyffes today reported a fall in profits for the first six months of the year, because of difficult trading conditions.

The company reported pre-tax profits of €10.3m, down from €12.6m a year earlier. Total revenue was up marginally at €402.6m. An unchanged interim dividend of 0.55 cent will be paid.

Goodbody's Killian Murphy commented - - "This morning Fyffes reported a strong set of H110 results, recording an ADJ EPS of 3.4c vs. our expectation of 2.8c. This was driven by a strong performance from the winter melon business, which offset pricing pressure in the banana division during the key selling months in Q1. The Pineapple division remains disappointing, with poor pricing and rising development costs resulting in a break even performance. The winter melon business had a strong selling season (which ended in May) and also saw improved cost management, resulting in an “improved result” yoy. Cash generation remains weak with the cash balance declining €300k yoy. Management is maintaining its FY guidance of €14m-18m. Currently we are forecasting at the lower end of the range. However, with Fyffes having achieved €13.1m in H1, we expect to be increasing this forecast marginally (as H2 accounts for only c.10% of profits)."

Results detail

BP: Oil giant BP said today that the cost of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill had risen to $8bn.

The Mocondo well which began leaking after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon platform on April 20th, which killed 11 workers, has been shut since July 15 after pumping almost five million barrels of oil into the Gulf .

BP this week commenced work to replace the rig's blow-out preventer, which had failed. The firm has paid out $428m in claims so far.

"The big risk is that there will be a downturn in markets that could impact the bond, the equity and the credit markets," Nouriel Roubini, chairman of RGEMonitor.com, told CNBC when discussing the economic outlook Friday:

Economic View: Irish public finances still on target; Goodbody chief economist, Dermot O’Leary, commented - - "A clear distinction must be made between developments in relation to Ireland’s banking sector and to the general path of the public finances. While banking sector issues have certainly deteriorated, last night’s Exchequer Returns for August reveals that Ireland is still on course to meet targets set out in December 2009 in relation to its budget deficit. Tax revenues are less than 1% behind target, while expenditure is 2% lower than expected in the eight months to August. Expenditure restraint is highlighted by the 6% fall in voted government expenditure (i.e. excluding interest costs).

This fall is fully attributable to the 34% decline in capital spending, with current spending rising by 2% over the first eight months. However, restraint is also evident in the current spending figures if one strips out the still rising cost of social welfare (despite the reduction in rates in Budget 2010). Excluding social welfare, current expenditure fell by 11% in the first eight months of 2010. A pre-condition for a stabilisation in the public finances though is a bottoming out in tax revenues. August is not a big month for tax revenues, but there does appear to be some sign of a plateau around the €31bn full-year target that has been set out. October and November are the biggest months for tax revenues so there is still some room for disappointment or a positive surprise. However, an increase in tax revenues from here will be heavily dependent on the forecast return to economic growth. Banking sector issues, though, are to blame for recent widening in Irish government bond spreads."

The Democrats could move for a surprise tax cut before the elections, but it's unclear if that would help the economy, Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson told CNBC. In Europe, Germany is strong but the rest is a "horror show," he added:

Irish tax revenue in line with projections as capital investment continues to lag: Davy economist, Aidan Corcoran, commented - - "Irish tax revenue provided some welcome positive news yesterday (September 2nd). Exchequer returns for the month of August showed the government's ambitious fiscal consolidation plans to be broadly on track, with tax revenues for the eight months to August a mere 0.7% behind target. This is an improvement from 1.4% behind at end-July. Income tax, which was the major offender in end-July figures, narrowed the shortfall against the December projection from 4.7% to 3.9%.

VAT, the second most important of the eight major tax headings, improved from 0.2% ahead of target at end-July to 0.7% ahead at end-August. Retail sales figures for July were slightly down on the month in both volume and value terms, but the more timely VAT returns suggest that the retail sales decline may not be the beginning of a down trend.

The government will be pleased with the progress in meeting December's budget forecasts, which will allow the underlying budget deficit to shrink as planned. A considerable contribution to this may come from reduced capital spending. At €2.6bn for the eight months to August, or 24% below the projection, there may be some cause for concern that long-term infrastructural investment could suffer from the budget squeeze."

As threats to the internet's openness continue to grow, Alex Travelli, Asia online editor at The Economist, sheds light on the cover story of this week's issue, "The Web's New Walls" with CNBC's Chloe Cho & Maithreyi Seetharaman:

US Markets

In New York Thursday, the Dow rose 51 points or 0.49% to 10,320.

The S&P 500 added 0.91% and the Nasdaq rose 1.06%.

Asia Markets

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.5% Friday and is up 1.1% on the week.

The Nikkei 225 added 0.57%; China's Shanghai Composite slipped 0.01%; Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index climbed 0.19% and India's Sensex Index was unchanged.

Asia benchmarks

In Europe, the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 rose 0.43% Friday.

The ISEQ has risen 0.18% in Dublin.

CRH is up 0.90%; AIB  has declined 0.53% and BoI has dropped 0.27%; Fyffes is up 3.03% and Merrion Pharmaceuticals is unchanged.

Merrion Pharmaceuticals (Buy, Closing Price €3.93): Solid H110 while awaiting a deal on Orazol; Goodbody's Ian Hunter commented - - "This morning, Merrion Pharmaceuticals reported a strong set of H110 numbers. Higher revenue (€2.7m versus an expectation of €2.3m) and lower operating costs (€2.8m versus €3.7m) combined to give a loss per share of 5c, compare to expectations of -9.4c. The company ended the period with gross cash and cash equivalents of €5.9m and net cash of €2.8m - we had just under €3m pencilled in. In such an early stage business, pipeline progress is more of a driver than historic performance. As such, new to the market, the company indicated that the Orazol Phase III trial design has now been agreed with the European Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use. Discussions are on-going with the FDA and, with the next meeting set for November, management "hopes to have made substantial progress" before year end.

Selection of a preferred partner is on-going and will be greatly aided by the finalisation of the Phase III trial design, which will quantify the commitment required by a third party in bringing Orazol through Phase III studies. On its drug development programme with Novo, management re-iterated that a second Phase I trial (this one with an oral GLP-1 analogue) started in March 2010, with data expected in 2011. Data from the first trial (oral insulin) could potentially be available by the end of this year. On the partner programme side of the business, Merrion is "continuing to pursue new exciting potential complementary collaborations with other pharmaceutical companies", which could provide additional catalysts for the stock over the coming months. Despite coming in ahead of expectations, at first glance, we will be holding our numbers as is until quantifying the flagged impact of reduced development income from Novo, given that manufacturing of materials for the Phase I trials has been completed."

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