Falling share prices in Asia overnight set the London market off to a bad start to the week sending the FTSE-100 index of top shares straight into a downward spin.
Both the Tokyo Nikkei and the Hong Kong Hang Seng closed in the red and, combined with Wall Street’s closing fall on Friday, sent the footsie down 73.3 at 5468.4 within the first few minutes of trading.
But the downward trend did not hit everyone, Tarmac put on 5.5p to 115.5p as it basked in the weekend newspaper reports of an imminent merger.
The building materials group has been tipped to merge with Aggregate Industries – up 0.5p at 71p.
Speculation over the defence industry also sent shares on the move.
Continuing hopes that British Aerospace will announce details of a deal with Germany’s Dasa saw BAe take of 8p to 510.
But reports that GEC was also waiting in the wings to join the European defence merger failed to lift its shares which instead dipped 2p to 537p.
Shell is scheduled to unveil its latest plans to analysts this afternoon and speculation has been rife of imminent job cuts or even merger deals, but until the details are unveiled traders were cautious lifting Shell just 2.5p to 356.5p.
Borrowing is set to mount at National Grid after the company announced it would be using credit to fund a £1.9bn acquisition in the US. The takeover of New England Electrical Systems will give the group a vital foothold in the rapidly changing US market, but the market was more concerned about the immediate costs to the company and shares slipped 6.5p to 492p.
PA News 14/12/98
