Market report
CUSTOS
Equities are now moving sideways with the -Financial Times ordinary share index stuck between 490 and 500. It has become a Budget- orientated market and rumours of a tough dose from the Chancellor could push it lower. Mean- while there are some strong movements by individual shares. British 'Petroleum has come in for speculative attention again on the news that it is to take a share in an 800-mile pipeline being built from Alaska's north slope to a site on the Gulf of Alaska. BP is to have a 371 per cent interest. Two encouraging points: BP must be extremely hopeful of finding oil in Alaska, indeed one suspects that it has already made-a
strike though nothing official has been said yet; second, the apparently difficult problems of getting crude down from the icy wastes are evidently being solved.
The troubles of the `QE 2' are washing back over the share prices of both Cunard and John Brawn. Strictly speaking, the former should not be too badly affected because the ship, initially, was expected to be a loss-maker. John Brown is more vulnerable, first because it has a substantial stake in Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, secondly because it built the engines.
Gilt-edged securities, friendless, continue to plumb new depths. War Loan is now down to £414 per cent where the yield is 81 per cent. Among the influences driving prices lower are the continuing signs that interest rates, intern- ally and externally, are rising.
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