Market report: Thursday close

THE latest radio listening figures dealt a last-minute blow to merger partners

Capital Radio slipped 4¾p to 335p as the Rajar quarterly figures figures showed that flagship station Capital 95.8FM is losing audience share to its bitter rival Heart 106.2 in the crucial London battleground.

Chrysalis station Heart recorded audience share of 7%, up from 5.3% the previous quarter after a 39% jump in listening hours, while Capital slipped by 0.1% to 6.1%. Chrysalis shares rose 9½p to 156¾p. GWR was 2¼p down at 198¾p as Classic FM's audience share slipped to 4.1%, its worst for five years.

Capital put a brave face on the figures, saying they showed GCap would have 17.1m listeners and 35.2% of the commercial audience. But media analysts at broker Numis dubbed the figures an 'inauspicious start' for the new group and said they would put immediate downward pressure on forecasts. Numis said it would review its figures after Capital's results on Monday.

Bridgewell Securities said the BBC's audience share of 54% was 'disappointing for the commercial sector'.

In the City, trading was reported as extremely light, as polling day got under way. News of an explosion outside the British consulate in New York momentarily derailed leading shares but the market quickly recovered and built on the recent rally, with the Footsie up 19.8 points at 4902.3.

After yesterday's rally, US investors were consolidating gains: the Dow Jones Industrial Average was last down 8 points to 10,376.

London investors were sticking to what they know, with miners featuring heavily among the top climbers. Rio Tinto, up 33p at 1638p, stressed its IFRS-adjusted results will not affect cashflow or commercial decisions. Under the new IFRS accounting rules, net earnings will be $405m (£213m) higher than under the British GAAP measure.

Xstrata added 26p to 942p and BHP Billiton was 18p higher at 66½p. Smith Barney switched its rating on Lonmin, up 39p at 986p, to hold from buy and upped its target price to 1000p, based on forecastbusting results.

SABMiller climbed 9p to 808p after an upgrade to overweight from equalweight by Morgan Stanley. The broker is impressed by the fact that SAB has the top three brands in 30 of its 40 markets.

Although Next is often talked up as the best-led retailer to weather a downturn, the growing body of evidence pointing to a sustained consumer setback proved too much today with the clothing chain down 29p at 1446p.

Merrill Lynch weighed into the debate with a gloomy note suggesting forecasts across the UK sector needed to reflect negative growth in like-for-like sales through 2005.

It is particularly concerned about clothing and electricals, areas where capacity is outstripping demand. Today it added Kesa, down 5½p at 256½p, and HMV, 1½p up at 219½p, to the growing list of downgraded retailers including Kingfisher, Boots, Matalan and GUS. It said there was a high risk of downgrades for Next, MFI, Dixons, JJB and Halfords, and further downgrades for Boots and GUS.

Goldminer Randgold Resources advanced 38p to 687½p after unveiling a rise in its gold reserves to 10.02m ounces from 7.97m last year. The additional gold is believed to lie at its 80-owned Loulo mine in Mali.