Arbuthnot Securities urges its clients to buy into the pubs group after its recent underperformance.¿ Berkeley 1,216p (up 33p, 2.7 per cent). Says it plans to leave behind its housebuilding heritage and concentrate on larger-scale regeneration projects.¿ Glenmorangie A 1,330p (up 272.5p, 25.8 per cent). Investors have heard nothing more concrete from Paramount since.Hansard Group lost 2.5p to 41.5p as the City PR company announced that it had raised only £6.8m of the intended £10.8m from its placing. McBride gained 7.75p to 129.25p after the detergents maker was heard to have held a series of bullish meetings with analysts. Trading at the group is said to be strong and market professionals reckon the company is in a position to raise its dividend at the next results.Paramount fell 3p to 31p as investors started to fret that the bid for the restaurants group may never arrive. It has been three months since the owner of the Chez Gerard chain announced that it had received a 35p-a-share offer for the company.

Kaupthing Bunadarbanki, a bank, has built up a 22 per cent stake in S&F while Burdaras, a local investment company, has a more modest 4 per cent holding.In the FTSE 100, BP fell 4.25p to 484.5p, BG lost 5p to 335.5p and Shell gave up 5p to 396.75p as the price of crude oil continued to fall. This takes his total holding in the advertising giant to 17.2 million shares, or 1.5 per cent.Among small-caps, NeuTec Pharma ticked 7.5p better to 467.5p on talk the group is on the way to securing a major distribution deal for its Mycograb anti-fungal treatment. Dealers pointed to the brighter outlook for crude production in Iraq as the reason for the drop and predicted that the price would drop to the $40-a-barrel level in the absence of further output disruption in Iraq.WPP put on 5p to 498p after Sir Martin Sorrell, the chief executive, disclosed the purchase of 200,000 shares at 495p each. The broker noted that in just the past month Cookson has fallen 13 per cent and Investec told its clients that the stock is beginning to look attractive.Singer & Friedlander improved 11p to 277p on talk of buying by one of the merchant bank’s two Icelandic shareholders. The US broker argued that ARM is paying too much for its American peer Artisan Components. “We see few revenue synergies and no cost synergies from the deal which makes us uncomfortable with the premium ARM has paid for Artisan,”JP Morgan said.EMI added 6p to 213p on the back of positive music industry data.

According to the latest figures from the British Phonographic Industry, CD sales increased by 16 per cent in the second quarter, the first positive move for five years. Investec Securities believes that this bodes well for EMI as it shows the industry is making progress in its fight against music piracy and that its efforts to reinvigorate sales through innovation are now having a positive effect.Cookson jumped 2.25p to 33.5p after Investec Securities drew investors’ attention to the fact that the group has gone from being the most expensive stock in the engineering sector to the cheapest over the past four months. Shares in the semiconductor designer finished 1.75p better at 83.5p and were supported by news that Jeremy Scudamore, a non-executive director, had bought 55,000 shares at 83.5p each.ARM was held back from further gains by JP Morgan, which cut its rating on the group to “neutral” from “overweight”. The property group is itself in a state of flux after its management hoisted the for sale sign last month. A link-up of the two would certainly hit HoF’s share price until it had become apparent that the deal had been a success.Elsewhere, ARM Holdings managed a modest rally after Monday’s sharp drop.

And further down the line, it could come up against stagnant consumer spending, if interest rates continue to rise. Another potential threat to the group’s share price, and Mr Hunter’s potential profit, is the prospect of a bid by HoF for Allders. The appointment of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein as HoF’s second corporate broker last month set tongues wagging that a move on Allders may be in the offing.HoF, steady at 115p yesterday, has the firepower for such an acquisition and may be able to prise the under-performing Allders from its backer, Minerva, at a reasonable price. He is estimated to be sitting on an £8m profit from his investment after a 25 per cent jump in the value of House of Fraser stock over the past 12 months.