Market report: Wednesday close

IT'S sale time at

Shares were weaker across the board today, with the FTSE 100 dipping back below 5000 after imbibing a bearish cocktail of UK interest rate fears, soaring commodity prices, the tumbling dollar and Wall Street's Tuesday sell-off. But as the blue-chip index close 44.4 points down at 4988.5, the early signs from the Dow, up 43.3 at 10,654.5, were positive.

Several dealers said London's slide had not come as much of a surprise. 'The market had started to get ahead of itself and a bit of realism is coming back,' said one.

Low temperatures in Europe and the US are partly behind the crude oil price rise, pushing it back towards late- October peaks. Eventually, a seasonal drop-off in energy demand should see prices ease, especially if that coincides with a rise in US oil inventories.

The weakening US currency is a major concern for companies which derive a large part of their revenues in dollars. Media stocks that rely heavily on US sales came under pressure for the same reason. Pearson was 4½p lower before recovering to close unchanged at at 651p, while financial information provider Reuters eased 2½p to 407p.

Heavyweight dollar earner BP dropped 4p to 556½p, while Shell was off 9p at 484¼p.

Shire Pharmaceuticals was off 4½p at 579p as it emerged that Israel's Teva Pharmaceuticals has joined the race to make a copycat version of the UK firm's Adderall XR hyperactivity drug. AstraZeneca, meanwhile, slipped 34p to 2139p despite news that the US authorities have given its heart failure treatment Atacand the thumbs-up.

Cutting earlier losses, Anglo-Australian support services group Brambles fell 5p to 290p after posting a 31% rise in first-half, pre-tax profit on the back of its booming CHEP pallet business. Dealers said Cazenove has retained its outperform rating on the stock.

South Africa-based brewer SABMiller, 4p better at 851½p, snapped up a further 39.8% in Italy's second-largest brewer Birra Peroni for €162.5m (£112m), bringing its stake to 99.8%.

Chemicals company Croda International topped the FTSE 250 leaderboard with a rise of 27p to 362p on strong full-year results. Canada-based oil and gas explorer Adulis Resources, which listed on Aim in November, has struck it lucky in Colombia, where it found oil with one of the first two wells it has drilled in a 10-well programme. Production is expected to start within two months. Its shares were unchanged at 176p.

IT software group Microgen expects strong growth this year from its banking business, which now accounts for 60% of sales, after beating market expectations with 2004 pre-tax profits of £1.1m, compared with £2.4m of losses a year ago. But the shares fell 2½p to 68½p.

Following a meeting with iSoft management, ABN Amro said recent share price weaknesss in the healthcare software firm is a 'strong buying opportunity'. Shares were up 14½p at 355½p.