Market report: Friday close

By MALCOLM WITHERS
Updated:

 

A GRIM fourth-quarter forecast from US-owned Lucent Technologies sent already hard-hit telecoms stocks plunging, putting fresh pressure on the wider market.

Vodafone, already depressed by UBS Warburg's downgrade in Thursday, fell to 87p at one stage before rallying to end down 2 1/4p at 90 1/4p. BT Group lost 4p to 195p, mmO2 slipped 1 1/4p to 43 3/4p and Cable & Wireless 2 1/2p to 146 1/2p.

Wall Street suffered the same bout of nerves about the prospect of a war in the Middle East as London and as it fell so did blue-chip shares in the Square Mile. The FTSE 100 ended off 76.9 at 4008.

Dealers pinned their hopes on more consolidation in the booming house-building sector to restore some speculative confidence.

Shares in Countryside Properties jumped 11 1/2p to 190p on bid hopes. The Essex-based group, run by chief executive Graham Cherry, is developing parts of the Cliveden estate, once a family home of the Astors and the setting for the sex scandal of the Sixties involving John Profumo, Harold Macmillan's Defence Minister, and Christine Keeler. Cherry's attitude towards consolidation in the past has been that 'there is more value in developing organically than in corporate manoeuvrings'.

With six-bedroom homes selling in places such as Ascot for more than £3m and a land bank of more than 24,000 plots, Countryside is hugely desirable. Its shares hit 222p during the summer, though the take-out price could be 250p. The prospect lifted Barratt Developments 8p to 432 1/2p, and Crest Nicholson 5p to 231 1/2p.

With the outlook for the Bush-Blair initiative on taking on Iraq looking increasingly-more realistic, oil shares began to decline again. Shell fell 9 1/2p to 400 1/2p and BP was off 10p to 456p despite buying back 6.2m shares at between 469p and 474 1/2p.

As war talk mounted, BAE Systems shares managed to gain some benefit despite Thursday's warning about future profits. They added 5p to 237p.

The non-appearance of that long-awaited rights issue from Royal & SunAlliance continued to have an impact, sending its shares down 8 3/4p to 111 1/4p.

All the other perceived cash-raisers were hit, led by Aviva, down 28 1/2p to 386 1/2p, Prudential, down 18p to 412p and Amvescap, losing 23 1/2p to 363p.

Banks were also depressed, led by Lloyds TSB, slipping 23p to 526p. Royal Bank of Scotland fell 46p to 1459p and Barclays lost 10p to 431 1/2p.

British Airways took off by 2 1/4p at one stage following figures from airports operator BAA, down 5p at 525p, showing that in August there was a 2.3% increase in passenger numbers. But war scares hit the airline, which ended down 3 3/4p to 123 1/4p.

Tech stocks suffered from an attack of Nasdaq blues as the US index headed south, taking Sage Group to the top of the Footsie fallers, down 8p at 118p. Logica slipped 6 1/2p to 128p and CMG lost 7p to 55p. Biotech minnow Alizyme enjoyed a bout of share buying by its chief executive, chairman and finance director, giving a 3p boost to its shares at 32p.

• Prices and indices in this section are supplied from various sources and calculated at different times and may not always match those listed on the site.

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