Market report: Tuesday close

SHARES in

Charter, which specialises in welding and cutting equipment, warned it had found accounting irregularities in one of its US businesses. That will hurt the rest of the group and operating profits are likely to be about £6m lower than expected. Results for previous years may have been about £4m overstated.

How times have changed. Four years ago, Charter shares were riding high at almost 800p. A year later, the engineer was getting ready to tie the knot with Lincoln Electric after the American company made an offer valuing it at £471m. This was later reduced to £386m after the American Federal Trade Commission said it would order the sale of certain assets if the takeover went through.

Then disaster struck when Lincoln suddenly pulled out of the bid and Charter issued a profits warning. It left an army of seething arbitragers and speculators nursing losses. Charter's stock market value today slumped to £35m.

Meanwhile, investors finally halted the slide of the past 11 days. Prices traded in narrow limits and below their best levels, despite an opening rally for the Dow on Wall Street. The FTSE 100 index ended ahead 9.2 points at 3490 as the threat of war continued to hang over the Square Mile.

Life assurers, which have been forced sellers of this market and took such a beating on Monday, suffered again. Britannic fell 17 1/2p to 115p and Prudential dropped 6 1/2p to 354p.

J Sainsbury rose 1/4p to 233 1/4p despite the threat by credit rating agency Moody's to cut its premium short-term and A2 senior unsecured rating because of its move to bid for Safeway. Moody's is also looking at HBOS, down 14 1/2p at 549p, with a view to cutting its rating.

The London Stock Exchange rose 3 1/4p to 333 1/2p after agreeing to pay up to £22m for the financial market software specialist Proquote. That should be good news for merchant bank Close Brothers, down 4p at 496p, which owns 10% of Proquote through its market-making arm Winterflood Securities. I hear Winterflood has doubled its money on the investment. Legal & General has built up a stake of 9.2m shares (3%) of the LSE.

Drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline rose 12p to 1050p, after Deutsche Bank upgraded it from 'hold' to 'buy' following recent weakness in the price. GSK is now trading more than 15% below Deutsche's 1300p price target. EMI Group fell 5p to 137p after Monday's downgrading by Deutsche, which has also slammed talk of a possible bid for the music company.

Household products supplier Reckitt Benckiser lost 30p to 1029p after a downgrading by Goldman Sachs. It has moved the shares from 'outperform' to 'inline'. It reckons the industry faces challenging times this year, which will signal a slowdown in earnings growth.

Leisure group Wembley jumped 30p to 770p after receiving permission from the Rhode Island Lottery Commission in the US to install a further 1300 slot machines at its Lincoln Park complex.

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.