Market report: Friday close

NEW session trading highs were hit for the second consecutive day as blue-chip shares largely ignored the overnight power blackout on Wall Street and concentrated on the bright side of the American economy.

Although trading was fairly muted, an intraday high of 4266.4, a gain of more than 28 points, was established within three hours of the market opening. This was trimmed later but the FTSE 100 index still ended up 9.5 points at 4247.3, a new closing high for the year.

The record-breaking movement in bluechips over the past two trading sessions led to champagne glasses being raised to Leeds stockbroker Michael Coleman of Redmayne-Bentley, who in May forecast the Footsie would hit 5000 next spring. Coleman believes the next test is the 4300 level which would signal the end of the more-thanthree-year bear market.

The main British casualty of the US power failure was National Grid Transco, down 8p to 389p, which distributes power in the north-eastern US.

On Wall Street, which was running on back-up generators, the Dow was flat, trading up 0.63 of a point at 9311.19. The Nasdaq dipped 0.26 of a point to 1700.08.

Emergency power suppliers were major gainers in London with standby generators firm Turbo Genset adding 2 3/4p at 45 1/4p, and Aggreko enjoying a gain of 9p to 157p as it generated 60 megawatts of temporary power for business and domestic use in the States.

Elsewhere in the power world, broker UBS likes gas distributor Centrica, setting a 230p target and upgrading its rating to buy from neutral, but amid a weak day for British utilities generally the shares sagged 3p at 177 3/4p.

Allied Domecq enjoyed the status of being added to Deutsche Bank's prestigious focus list. The Germans recently upgraded the drinks group to buy and set a target price of 400p. Today it moved closer to that target with a 1/4p gain to 368 1/4p.

Fears the European Commission may scupper BSkyB's £1bn soccer deal with the Premier League depressed its share price 12p to 694 1/2p.

Shares in aerospace specialist Smiths Group moved ahead 12 1/2p to 716p as Lehman Brothers set a price target of 825p with an overweight rating.

Property specialist Northacre confirmed recent share price increases were due to the much talked about approach of chairman Klas Nilsson and chief executive John Hunter. Its shares added 3p at 15p.

Support continued for Thus Group, up 1 1/2p to 30 1/2p, and helped it to become the most heavily traded stock in the FTSE 250 with volume running at 20m. The lossmaking telecoms supplier reached a high of 844 1/2p during the telecoms boom. It does not pay a dividend.

Volume was muted for Real Estate Opportunities following yesterday's 1.93m trades. There is still mystery over why director Ray Horney sold off a 2.9% stake, or 5.7m shares, earlier this week for 75p each. Today the shares were up 1/2p at 55 1/2p.

Hope of a Russian bid for South African-based Lonmin, that has pushed its share price up from 661 1/2p in May, continued to circulate. But can Russian metals giant Norilsk Nickel afford it or even break through the bid barriers erected by Lonmin? The shares added 31p at 946p.