By Rodrigo Campos and Herbert Lash NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors who had bet on the American consumer even as the U.S. economy was entering the Great Recession are the biggest winners as the S&P 500 stock index set a new closing record on Thursday. Millions of jobs were lost in 2008 and 2009, the toughest recession in half a century, and many Americans saw the value of their investments and their homes dive. The U.S. consumer retrenched, focused on paying down debt.

* Says could borrow 800 mln stg for acquisitions * Full-year pretax profit down 8 pct to 302 mln stg * Group revenue falls 6 pct to 1.75 bln stg * Increases dividend 10 pct to 8.8 pence per share By Brenda Goh LONDON, March 7 (Reuters) - British defence and aerospace supplier Cobham is to expand its commercial aircraft division and continue cost-cutting to offset forecast U.S. budget cutbacks and return the company to growth next year.

* HSI jumps 2 pct on Thursday, but falls 3 pct in February * CSI300 up 3 pct on the day, but slips 0.5 pct this month * HK indexes have worst month since May, underperform China * China Vanke surges after 2012 earnings impress * SJM sinks after earnings miss, BofA-ML downgrade By Clement Tan

* FTSEurofirst 300 up 0.2 pct, Euro STOXX 50 down 0.7 pct * Investors cautious ahead of ECB, Spain debt auction * European shares still cheap relative to book value By Blaise Robinson PARIS, Feb 6 (Reuters) - European stocks were mixed at midday on Wednesday as the previous session's tentative recovery lost steam, with euro zone banks sliding on renewed concerns over the health of the region's economy. Intesa Sanpaolo dropped 2.7 percent, UniCredit was down 2.4 percent, Commerzbank down 1.4 percent and Credit Agricole down 1.7 percent.