Market report: Thursday close

TALK of a bid for

Broker Teather & Greenwood rates the shares a strong buy. The price has risen from a low of 261p earlier this year.

Share prices generally ticked better despite fresh overnight losses for the Dow. The FTSE 100 index ended up 6.1 points at 4223.5. A strong dollar caught traders on the hop, making UK stocks more attractive to international investors.

Financials reversed Wednesday's losses. HBOS rose 11p to 728p, HSBC put on 11p to 809p and Schroders added 9 1/2p to 706p. Shareholders in healthcare specialist Smith & Nephew breathed a sigh of relief after it emerged that Swiss rival Centerpulse was facing an informal inquiry by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The inquiry is thought to centre on Centerpulse's accounting practices.

Smith's $2.6bn (£1.6bn) bid for Centerpulse is about to be withdrawn after its original offer was topped by US group Zimmer Holdings. Smith has refused to come back with a higher offer after warnings from the City that it would be paying over the odds for the business. The price touched 400p before retreating to trade 3 1/2p cheaper at 393 1/2p.

Microchip designer Arm Holdings rose 5 1/4p to 100p. Lehman Brothers has published a survey of the European chip market and continues to rate Arm underweight. But it has raised its target price from 85p to 130p.

Housebuilder Crest Nicholson added a further 2p to 331 1/2p. There was heavy turnover in the shares on Wednesday, leading speculators to claim that Gerald Ronson's Heron International has topped up its holding from 4.17% to 6%. They say Ronson is building a stake with a view to making a bid.

Shell rose 2 1/4p to 407p after its 34%-owned subsidiary Woodside Petroleum, Australia's second-largest oil company, returned to the black and unveiled plans to double output.

Cattles, the door-to-door lender, gained 23 1/2p to 350p after first-half profits topped forecasts and the company avoided an increase in bad debt costs.

Diagnostics specialist Amersham rose 8 1/4p to 518 1/4p after UBS repeated its buy recommendation and raised its 12-month target price from 550p to 600p. UBS has also repeated its neutral stance on engineer Tomkins, 1/2p better at 268p, but has raised its target price from 240p to 255p.