Market report: Wednesday close

Michael Clark12 April 2012

THE company contracted to maintain the points that caused last week's Potters Bar train crash,

Jarvis

At one stage the price hit a low of 282 1/2p before reducing the deficit to 53 1/2p at 334p. The low point stretched the loss since Friday to 237 1/2p or 46%, wiping £333m off the group's stock market value of £729m in only four days. Questions are being asked about who has overall responsibility for the railway infrastructure, Railtrack or the contractors. Jarvis is a member of the Tube Lines consortium charged with running part of London's Underground. Other railway contractors came under pressure including Amec, down 8 3/4p to 461p, and Carillion, off 7 1/2p at 208 1/2p.

It was another day of modest gains on the London market with Wall Street choosing to give back some of its recent gains in early trading this afternoon. The FTSE 100 index rose 19.6 points to 5259.1.

Publisher Pearson fell to 807p before rallying to narrow the deficit to 18 1/2p at 828 1/2p. Once again there has been talk that Spain's Telefonica has been looking to place its stake of 39m shares, or almost 5%.

It comes hard on the heels of a big placing in satellite broadcaster BSkyB, up 16p to 726p, of Vivendi's remaining 13% stake. The 250m shares were five times oversubscribed and placed with various institutions at 670p, raising an estimated £1.6bn. Total share turnover was a whopping 350m.

Unilever retreated 5 1/2p to 636 1/2p after going ex the 10p dividend. It follows yesterday's placing by broker Merrill Lynch of 20m shares at 647p. We are still waiting to find out the identity of the seller. An upbeat message to shareholders lifted HBOS 15 1/2p to 813 1/2p. Marconi fell 0.19p to 9.1p after delaying the publication of its business plan.

Merrill Lynch is confident about prospects for AstraZeneca, up 110p at 3220p, and has repeated its market outperform rating for the shares. It says that sales of its new drug Crestor will reach $3.2bn (£2.2bn) by 2006, even if it is rejected, as some think, by the US Food & Drug Administration.

The spotlight fell on the retail sector. Kingfisher is to ask shareholders for an extra £2bn by way of a heavily discounted rights issue. The shares fell 2 1/2p to 383p. It wants the money to help buy the outstanding 45% of French DIY chain Castorama that it does not already own. It is also pressing ahead with plans to separate its electricals business, which includes the Comet chain of shops.

Full-year results from Safeway failed to impress. Shares in the food retailer lost much of their recent inspired gains to trade 9 1/2p lower at 308p after chief executive Carlos Criado-Perez warned that sales growth had slowed dramatically in the first six weeks of the financial year.

Cable & Wireless fell 5 1/4p to 201p after an analysts' meeting that coincided with full-year numbers showing a massive loss of £4.7bn. Broker Cazenove did the damage by telling clients to sell into any strength in the share price. Computer software group Logica remained a weak market in the wake of last week's warning, the price falling a further 11 1/2p to 236 1/2p.

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.

The Daily Mail's Stephanie Bentley on yesterday's trade
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