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Most followed:Asda, Greece, retail sales, Standard Life, Tri-Star Resources

Last updated: 21:20 20 Feb 2015 AEDT, First published: 22:20 20 Feb 2015 AEDT

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It’s deuced quiet out there, Carruthers. Well, apart from the interminable wrangling between Greece and the rest of the Eurozone.

The race is on for a settlement to be agreed ahead of today’s meeting of Eurozone finance ministers.

The Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed official who has been involved in the negotiations, who said that the parties are four-fifths of the way there.

UK retail sales were worse than expected in January. Sales were down 0.3% from December, which is probably not surprising now that the January sales seem to take place at the end of November.

Economists had predicted a 0.2% decline.

Meanwhile, pundits and the commentariat are mulling yesterday’s news that Asda’s full-year like-for-like sales fell in 2014 for the first time in six years.

Asda boss Andy Clarke is in little doubt who is to blame; it is those rotten competitors chasing unprofitable sales with a blizzard of special offers and bewildering voucher schemes.

Having said that, Asda invested £300mln in lowering prices in 2014, which was £100mln more than it planned.

“Investing in lowering prices” makes it sound like they spent £300mln on new pricing guns, when in reality they just sacrificed a bit of margin.

Elsewhere on the corporate front, life assurance group Standard Life (LON:SL.) said it saw a significant reduction in demand for individual annuities last year, following changes announced in the 2014 Budget.

“In 2015, we expect the contribution from annuity new business to reduce by between £10mln-£15mln and the contribution from asset liability management to reduce by between £30mln-£40mln,” the company said in its full-year results statement.

Group operating profit before tax rose to £604mln in 2014 from £508mln in 2013. A final dividend of 11.43p has been proposed, making a total of 17.03p for the year, up 7.8% on 2013’s pay-out.

David Nish, the company’s chief executive (not the former Leicester City, Derby County and England full back), said: "Although investment markets are unsettled and may affect the near-term pace of asset and revenue growth, we are very well placed for the future.”

Assets under administration from continuing operations increased by 38% to £296.6bn, driven by net inflows, positive market movements and the acquisition of Ignis Asset Management.

You know it is a slow news day when ‘notice of results’, ‘change of auditor’ and ‘change of registered office’ are the titles of three of the most widely read announcements on a well-known stock market news web site.

There is some hard news about in the small cap space, with the pick probably being Tri-Star’s (LON:TSTR) receipt of the provisional environmental permit from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs for the OAR project and the site in the Sohar Free Trade Zone.

The permit enables Strategic & Precious Metals Processing, a company 40% owned by Tri-Star, to start construction activities and proceed with the businesses activities of SPMP according to the terms and conditions of the environmental permit application.

Tri-Star’s shares are up by more than 20%.

Australian Strategic Materials signs US$600 million LoI

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