Market report: Friday close

THE quantity of banks' duff loans was at the front of investors' minds following another key result in the sector.

The tide of poor lending is rising and there are suspicions that most of the bill for bad investments in the telecoms and technology sectors is still in the post.

The top five banks all weakened, with Lloyds TSB down 44 1/2p to 730 1/2p after it said profits slipped 8% to £3.6bn. It raised its bad debt provisions and shed little light on its growth plans outside Britain.

The Argentinian crisis cost the bank £100m and the probability of rising bad debts provisions at major banks undermined enthusiasm for the sector.

Royal Bank of Scotland slipped 12p to 1788p, HSBC fell 8p to 793p, Standard Chartered was down 5 1/2p at 766 1/2p and HBOS lost 17p at 866p.

Talk that Barclays is lining up a European purchase could not prevent the shares sliding 39p to 2131p. ING Barings lowered its earnings-per-share forecasts on Barclays by 5% for this year and 7% for 2003, while nudging its target price down to 1867p.

American threats against Iraq also helped cap the market's advance from two-week highs on Thursday. The FTSE-100 index at the close was 5182.5, down 26.2 despite gains for heavyweights Vodafone, up 1 1/5p to 132p, and BP, ahead 2p to 571 1/2p.

Scottish & Newcastle recouped 23p to 561p as its move into the Russian beer market, greeted with disdain on Thursday, sparked an upgrade from Deutsche Bank. Its target, Finnish brewer Hartwall, unveiled a 59% jump in profits.

One over-eager trader was in hot water as a rogue order in Schroders went through at the open, sending the shares up 71 1/2p to 899p. The Stock Exchange said a buy order at the best price was left standing against an opening offer at 899p, so the trade was therefore genuine and will be settled. Luckily it involved a packet of less than 1,000 shares. It was an hour before the stock was requoted, and was later up a more modest 5p at 832 1/2p.

Dragon Oil, which has struggled to meet production targets, dipped 2p to 16p after chief executive Ian Barron quit the loss-making Irish group.

Insurance software firm The Innovation Group issued a statement predicting a strong first quarter, helping it pare earlier heavy losses linked to accounting worries, to leave it down 16 1/2p at 273 1/2p. A new look to the board at Psion's mobile phone software affiliate Symbian sees Psion founder David Potter stepping up as interim executive chairman, but Symbian is now lacking a chief executive after the departure of Colly Myers and Psion shares retreated 1p to 78p.

A week's delay to a meeting between ailing telecoms group Energis and its bank creditors, set for today, saw its stock sink 1p to a record 12 3/4p low.

Among small caps, Wellington Underwriting dipped 6p to 74p after saying its share of losses linked to September's terrorist attack on New York's World Trade Center had risen to £75m.

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 Geoff Foster on yesterday's trading
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