FTSE steady before Budget

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The FTSE 100 is hovering around the 4,000 mark in early trading, with Reed Elsevier , among the morning's biggest losers, down 4.81% to 475p after it warned earlier this week it expected its business-to-business publishing division to see profits fall substantially this year.

Meanwhile Centrica is trading ex-dividend today, and as such stands with the second largest dip in its share price down 4.47% to 235p. Lonmin also fell 4.57%, as did BT Group, with the latter seeing shares fall after rumours the company may have to write off substantial value on a number of private a public sector contracts. The stock is currently down 3.30% at 89.90p just before 9am. Meanwhile financials are leading the upside this morning, after the IMF withdrew a claim UK banks will face a £200bn bailout bill. The IMF retracted the figure correcting it to the original estimate of £13...

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