Daily Mail, London, market report column

Source: Daily Mail, LondonOct.迷你倉 18--BILLIONAIRE US investor and corporate raider Carl Icahn recently increased his stake in Chesapeake Energy to 10pc. Dealers on both sides of the Atlantic are convinced that the man who began his career as a Wall Street stockbroker in 1961 is confident that the second largest natural gas producer in the US, which is heavily into fracking, will soon attract a foreign cash bid in the region of $40 a share.Dealers heard that BP (1.85p easier at 443.9p) and Royal Dutch Shell (20.5p off at 2039.5p) could both be running the slide-rule over the Oklahoma-based company whose shares yesterday touched a 52-week peak of $27.67.Fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a high pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside. For Chesapeake, the primary profit in fracking comes not from selling the gas itself, but from buying and flipping the land that contains the gas.After both the House and the Senate voted to end the government shutdown and lift the debt ceiling at the last minute, fund managers were still in no mood to chase the market higher. The threat of a repeat stalemate early next year tempered their enthusiasm and the Footsie traded 30 points lower before rallying to finish 4.57 points up at 6576.16p.Wall Street lost 34.36 points in the early stages to 15,339.47 after disappointing results from IBM and eBay had US traders worrying about corporate profitability.Talk of a pending upbeat circular helped discount airline easyJet climb 49p to 1328p. Broadcaster ITV rose 5p to 195.1p after Liberum Capital raised its fair valuation to 255p from 230p.Mexico-focused precious metals group Fresnillo rose 15p to 952.5p after saying it was on track to hit silver production targets this year after a good third-quarter. Selling ahead of the group's third-quarter results on Tuesday dragged ARM 25p lower to 1005p. Liberum Capital is a seller and believes ARM's royalty outlook to remain affected by slowing device demand amidst a shift to the low-end, as well as gradual market share losses to Intel.Wickes DIY group Travis Perkins lost 29p to 1749p after the company warned that it struggled in the warm weather. Trading at Wickes and Tile Giant retail outlets remains 'challenging' with flat like-for-like sales growth over the quarter to end-September.Good thi儲存d-quarter production data lifted Russian gold producer Polymetal Inter-national 45p to 570p. The group produced 413,000 ounces of gold, well in excess of analysts' expectations. Canaccord Genuity says it gives it a really easy fourth-quarter target to hit the 1.2m ounce year-end target.A combination of revived takeover talk and a massive bear squeeze helped Moneysupermarket.Com put on 6.5p to 154.2p.Renishaw ran into heavy selling and the close was 96p off at 1580p. Investors ran for the exit on hearing that revenues for the quarter ended September 30 dropped to pounds sterling 79m from pounds sterling 95.9m. Pre-tax profits slumped to pounds sterling 10.6m from pounds sterling 27.7m last time.Specialist veterinary pharmaceuticals group Dechra shed 14p to 681p after it revealed that first-quarter export revenues were lower than the previous year, which more than offset the 'robust' growth of 4pc seen within its own sales and marketing operations.Speedy Hire, the provider of tools and equipment services, eased 1.5p to 66.5p after saying revenues for the six months to end-September was 0.1pc lower than last year.Sellers dragged Prime Focus London 1.88p or 33pc lower to 3.75p after it was announced that Prime Focus Ltd, which owns 65pc of the equity, served a notice calling for a general meeting to consider a resolution to cancel the company's shares on AIM.Futura Medical closed at 68p, up 2.75p, on hearing that CSD500, the company's novel condom, has been awarded the CE mark certificate. It means that it can be marketed in all European territories and also a number of non-European territories that recognise the CE mark process.Buying on the back of a positive trading update left Plus500 19p up at 147p. The online service provider for retail customers wishing to trade Contract for Differences (CFDs) internationally, said more than 62,000 active users trading across the platform in August.Avacta, which provides diagnostics for human and veterinary purposes, improved 2.9pc to 0.9p after signing a licence agreement with Blueberry Therapeutics.Self-storage company Lok'(ASTERISK) Store rose 4.5p to 196p after selling its site in Reading for pounds sterling 2.9m.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 Daily Mail (London, ) Visit the Daily Mail (London, ) at .dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html Distributed by MCT Information Servicesmini storage