Market report: Tuesday close

A RETREAT by the banks ahead of their reporting season was sufficient to spark an overall drift in the market today.

Northern Rock kicks off with its results tomorrow and the shares defied the optimistic urgings of Goldman Sachs, which has set a fair-value price of 710p, by declining 21p to 671p. Abbey National slipped back 26p to 1050p, Royal Bank of Scotland fell 47p to 1793p and Barclays was off 61p at 2241p. With banks representing 20% of the Footsie, the rest of the market goes where they go. A record £30bn worth of earnings could be unequally shared over the next three weeks.

The brokers were at each other's throats over BSkyB. Credit Suisse reckons they look cheap and has set a target price of 893p. But Morgan Stanley has downgraded Rupert Murdoch's star performer and it won the initial battle. BSkyB shares slumped 45 1/2p - or 6.3% - to 673p.

Close behind was ICI, mainly on market rumours of a profit warning. The former bellwether stock slipped 15p to 388p, a tumble of nearly 3.72%.

The Global Crossing network's collapse across the Atlantic left a few questions for Britain's Cable & Wireless. Will it be able to integrate the assets it has acquired swiftly and without too many problems? The market remained worried and marked the shares down 10 3/4p to 289 1/2p.

Merrill Lynch analyst Nick Watkins believes the purchase of Zebank will transform Egg into the only listed pure-play pan-European credit card company. He sets a 200p target for the year. Egg shares moved ahead 7 3/4 to 153p.

Ahead of its trading statement tomorrow, WH Smith moved back 11 1/2p to 500p. Medical equipment supplier Amersham reports next month, but there were profit-takers out to take advantage of recent rallies in its share price. They drove it back 17 1/2p to 645p.

JP Morgan likes the look of Arm Holdings and has set a target price of 480p. The shares moved closer with a 3 1/4p rise to 311 1/4p. Slough Estates suffered a slight setback from UBS, which reduced its target price to 420p, down from 470p, but was still hot on the property group, considering it a strong buy. The shares responded with a 6p gain to 352p.

A bout of enthusiasm from New York overnight, combined with a Merrill Lynch survey that predicted global fund managers will be locking in to European equities to boost their creaking collective performances over the past two years, gave an initial boost to the market. But heavily influential oil shares suffered from a dismal Lehman Brothers forecast about earnings and that helped the Footsie slide 92.2 points to 5131.4. All the other indices were in negative territory.

Internet-based antiques dealer Finelot, which is chaired by Antiques Roadshow expert John Bly, is relying on the performance of its US lifestyle magazine FINE, which was launched in November last year. The second issue is due out next month.

The £3.2m raised when Finelot floated on AIM last year is going, going, gone, but there may be US interest from the likes of online auctioneer eBay. Finelot shares bottomed earlier this month at 1 3/4p. Today profit-taking left them 1p down at 5 1/4p.

Shares in AIM-listed gold group Centamin increased 1/4p to 8 3/4p after it reported strong results from its Sukari deposit in Egypt. It also said estimated gold resources rose by 60,000 ounces to 1.73m.

Prices and indices in this section are supplied from various sources and calculated at different times and may not always match those listed in the tables. Ofex prices relate to the previous close.

The Daily Mail's Cliff Feltham on yesterday's trade
World markets, updated every 15 minutes
Every share, updated every 15 minutes
AIM, updated every 15 minutes
techMARK, updated every 15 minutes
Today's gainers and fallers