Gold producers were hit by a wave of profit taking Ask Central dropped 4p to 168p after Panmure downgraded the stock to "neutral" from "buy", citing risks to takeover talks with City Centre Restaurants. "Although we expect a minimum acquisition price of 190p per share for Ask, there is still a risk that the talks will fail," the broker said.MyTravel, down 0.25p at 12.75p, unveiled the sale of its Lexington Services division for £4.6m. Goran Ennerfelt, non-executive director at Spirent, disclosed the sale of another 3.6 million shares at 69p, leaving the telecom testing equipment group 5.25p lower at 64.5p. "The news from Microsoft reinforces our concerns that Surfcontrol is playing in a game that is destined to be dominated by giants," said the broker as it urged investors to sell down their holdings. In London, gold traded at about $393 per ounce yesterday afternoon.Surfcontrol retreated 2.5p to 867.5p on news that Microsoft intends to move into the market for spam-filtering software currently occupied by Surfcontrol. Microsoft's new product, to be called SmartScreen, was unveiled by Bill Gates at a technology show and is expected to be available from the first half of next year.Investec Securities was heard warning investors that the announcement by the US software giant could cause customers to delay buying Surfcontrol's products while they await the launch of Microsoft's alternative. On the same day Hays is also expected to issue a trading statement. "Given the signs of improvement at peer Michael Page we would expect Hays to point to a further upturn in trading," said CSFB.Gold producers were hit by a wave of profit taking. Peter Hambro Mining lost 7p to 378.5p, Randgold gave up 19p to 1,500p and Highland Gold retreated 1.5p to 257.5p. Gold players have had a great time recently thanks to the buoyant gold price and market professionals expect the commodity to continue to soar in value next year. Among them was the broker Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, which yesterday predicted that the price of gold could well hit $435 per ounce in 2004, supported by increased investment demand, a weaker dollar and geo-political tensions. The tariffs have for long been an acute source of embarrassment to John Snow, the US Treasury Secretary, a free trader by instinct who inherited the policy.
Mr Snow will be at the CBI conference today, and he'd make the announcement himself were it not Mr Bush's perogative.None of this means we can afford to be relaxed about trade. As Cordell Hull, a former US Secretary of State, once said, "when goods cannot cross frontiers, armies will". We are not anywhere near that stage yet, thanks largely, it has to be said, to the US, whose ability to soak up the world's overspill of surplus goods seems to know no bounds. Only he wouldn't say which ones.It all makes for a good headline from what's turning out to be the usual dull old mix of whingeing and lecturing from those of Britain's business leaders who can be bothered to turn up But truth it almost certainly ain't. |
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