After a rally in London markets yesterday, the FTSE 100 closed last night at 6000 points only to be dragged down today by profit-taking and a cool response by investors to the full year results from oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSA) . On a brighter note, figures from the UK’s service sector purchasing managers index (PMI) bounced back in January, offering some hope that the contraction in UK GDP in the final quarter of 2010 was a blip. As lunch approached, the FTSE 100 was trading down 25 points at 5,975.12.

Reporting its fourth quarter and full year figures, Shell was widely perceived to have disappointed investors with adjusted earnings in the final three months coming in at $4.1bn – off expectations of between $4.7bn-$4.9bn. Full year 2010 earnings, on a current cost of supplies basis, were $18.6bn, up from $9.8bn in 2009. Oil and natural gas production volumes were up 5% to 3.3m boepd. By late morning, the Royal Dutch Shell share price was down 3% to 2198.50p in its ‘A’ shares and down 3.1% to 2180p in its ‘B’ shares.

Home products group Unilever (LON:ULVR) reported an 11.1% rise in full year revenues to €44.3bn, with 7.3% of that down to currency variations. Underlying volume growth came in at 5.8% while underlying sales growth was 4.1%. Underlying pricing fell by 1.6% but the operating margin was up 20bps. Overall, net profits were up 26% to €4.598bn. The Hellman’s-to-Dove-to-Domestos giant said it was pleased with the result, particularly its strong volume growth in emerging markets, which continue to be group’s main growth driver. The Unilever share price fell slightly to 1846p.

Power station owner International Power (LON:IPR) has completed its tie-up with French multi-national GDF Suez, which will see the two sides combine their Energy International Business Areas (outside Europe) and certain assets in the UK and Turkey. The combined business creates a global leader in independent power generation with over 66,000MW of gross capacity in operation and committed projects expected to deliver 22,000MW of gross capacity by 2013. The International Power share price edged higher to 407.7p.

Investment banking group Investec (LON:INVP) said the majority of its six core businesses had…

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