Big sellers
Last week a young broker with Hoare Govett was telling me that even such financial giants as Scottish Widows have been selling ICI and Distillers, yielding 8 per cent or so in what is to them penny packets of 5,000 to 25,000 shares. As soon as a deal has been completed and the price marked down against them they have sold again. There may well be special reasons for some of these sales by life offices who traditionally have a spate of encashments and redemptions during periods of financial stress. They need cash. With the leaders selling and being sold it is scarcely a surprise that the market is having trouble finAdmiingda floor.
Amid gloom there is a ray of comfort for those savers who receive those tiresome telephone calls from the 'galloping majors' employed by the stockbrokers. After putting an acquaintance into, say, Distillers at 125p they call seemingly to say that the shares are up to 130p. However, as they later plummet down, there are no comforting words. No mention of lunch soon. A lonely and terrible silence as they prudently keep well out of reach.
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