Footsie fronts up despite US fears

By GEOFF FOSTER FOR MAILONLINE
Updated: 02:59 EDT, 24 January 2006

WHAT a relief. The Footsie yet again displayed commendable resilience and rallied strongly from an early sharp mark-down which followed Wall Street's biggest one-day fall on Friday for almost three years.

Buyers soon made their presence felt at the lower levels and an initial 47.4 point fall was eventually replaced at the close by one of only 11.5 points at 5,660.9. The Dow Jones recovered 69 points in early trading yesterday.

These days it takes a lot to get the Footsie rattled. Cash-rich fund managers do not really want to sell stock and are forever on the look- out for cheap buying opportunities.

The soaring $69 a barrel oil price remains their biggest concern but generally they remain bullish about short-term prospects.

Interest rates both at home and in the US could soon be moving south and merger and acquisition activity is ready to take off again.

Oversold heavyweight mobile phone group Vodafone helped the cause with a gain of 3p at 121p ahead of today's third-quarter key performance indicators. Barclays Stockbrokers say they should show strong subscriber growth in most key markets compared with the previous quarter.

Good numbers are expected from Vodacom in South Africa, Verizon Wireless and operations in Egypt and India, although inactivity in Germany could mean some downward revisions.

BT buzzed 312p higher to 207 1/4p on hopes that telecoms watchdog Ofcom will soon end 20 years of direct control of the telecom giant's consumer business.

BT currently cannot offer its millions of customers any new deals without Ofcom's approval. Should the handcuffs be removed, BT would be able to slash prices and attract more customers.

Fund manager Schroders jumped 40 1/2p to 1065 1/2p on talk it is favourite to swallow Gartmore for a price in the region of £600m. Bid hopes lifted F&C Asset Management 12 3/4p to 215 1/2p.

Profit-taking ahead of Friday's fourth-quarter statistics left online casino PartyGaming 2 3/4p cheaper at 140p. Investec expects a positive update reflecting the success of the recently launched blackjack offer into PartyPoker.com.

Clara Furse must be on cloud nine. The chief executive of the London Stock Exchange yesterday watched the shares soar 21p more to a record 711p, valuing her stake at a cool £2.2m and that's without taking her options into consideration. They were changing hands at around 350p some 15 months ago before Deutsche Bourse tabled an unsuccessful bid.

Macquarie's 580p a share offer for LSE is dead in the water. The Australian investment bank needs to add more than £1 a share to its offer to stand the remotest chance of success. Meanwhile, Nasdaq waits menacingly in the wings. Watch this space.

AIM-listed Provexis jumped 2 1/2p to 10 3/4p after announcing a 'significant increase' in the number of distribution outlets for its Sirco heart health juice drink.

Dealers believe Ultrasis (0.01p easier at 1.71p) will take on a new lease of life following news it has signed an agreement with four Primary Care Trusts in East Sussex who have signed up for its Beating the Blues (BtB) flagship computerised behaviour therapy package for three years.

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) is expected to make its formal recommendation to the Department of Health for BtB to be used for the treatment of mild and moderate depression within the next four weeks. This could lead to a potential nationwide NHS prescription rollout of BtB, which would take Ultrasis to a different level.

Diablo Group, the AIM listed independent record label edged up to 10p. Word is it has signed contracts with The Disc Kiosk to sells its CD on demand services worldwide.

Oil and gas company Afren gushed 3p to 59 1/2p on hearing that drilling started last wek at the Obo-1 exploration well in Nigeria.