In the past three months the stock market, as gauged by the FTSE All-Share index, has retreated by more than 10 per cent.
Meanwhile, IP Group has marched nearly 20 per cent higher to 139p, after its latest 2¾p improvement.
Go back farther, and its market value has more than trebled since the beginning of October, to £508 million last night.
That earned IP, which helps others to commercialise bright ideas, a place in the FTSE 250 index of medium-sized companies.
Founded in 2001, IP has ties to ten British universities and holdings in more than 60 companies, from nascent to mature businesses across a range of sectors.
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So far, 14 of its portfolio companies have listed on AIM and one on Plus Markets.
Notable recent successes include Oxford Nanopore Technologies, which developed a cheap way of sequencing DNA, Revolymer, best known for its removable chewing gum, and Xeros, which won plaudits for its revolutionary clothes washing techniques that require much less water.
IP’s promotion, based on last night’s closing price, will be ratified by FTSE Group, the entity that runs the indices, on Wednesday and will take effect on June 18.
So, too, will the other changes made in the latest reshuffle. Out of the FTSE 100 goes Man Group, the troubled hedge fund manager that has shed nearly three quarters of its value in less than a year. Too little, too late a 2½p rise to 75½p yesterday, partly a product of its struggling flagship AHL computerised fund at long last starting to show signs of life, and partly of reheated speculation that the heavyweight American money manager BNY Mellon may be weighing a 100p-a-share bid.
Its place in the top flight will be taken by Babcock International, the £3 billion services company that maintains the Royal Navy’s submarines. Its shares are more than 15 per cent higher since the last FTSE review, even after yesterday’s 9½p decline to 840½p.
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An ugly May for the stock market, its worst month since 2009, seamlessly rolled into June. London’s leading index fell another 60.67 points to 5,260.19, its lowest in six months, as the same problems remained unresolved. Spanish banks are still drowning, the country’s borrowing costs still worrying. Greek politics still cast a pall over the euro.
Then there was a closely watched jobs reports from the United States that missed expectations, and missed them by a mile. A few hours earlier came fresh evidence from Chinese manufacturers that the economy there was slowing, echoed by manufacturers in Britain and across the Continent.
One patriotic trader quipped: “I was hanging up the bunting for the Jubilee and I changed it to a white flag.”
Little surprise, then, that the clamour for gilts, bunds, Treasuries and other havens continued.
The dire US employment figure — 69,000 jobs were created in May, against expectations of 150,000 — did help the gold price. An ounce of the precious metal, a classic hedge against rising inflation, jumped back above $1,600 as speculation of further quantitative easing, “QE3”, returned.
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Dearer gold and cheaper oil, a significant cost for the mining industry, as well as a stronger dollar in which gold is sold and weaker currencies in which miners are paid, all burnished Randgold Resources, 360p higher at £55.55, and Petropavlovsk, up 21p at 388p.
But other miners were lower. So, too, were industrial companies. Demand for the products of both suffers in a downturn. Evraz, the Russian steelmaker, fell 14¼p to 281p.
Alufer Mining, a bauxite digger with assets in Guinea, West Africa, pulled plans to raise as much as $40 million (£26 million) and list on AIM. Tricky in these treacherous markets. Instead, Alufer raised $6 million by a private placing and another $6 million by selling a convertible loan note.
Those Footsie constituents to rise had a defensive flavour — the water supplier Severn Trent added 39p to £17.60 — or attracted a little bargain-hunting after recent weakness. Among the smaller companies, HMV jumped by 17.4 per cent to 4p amid applause for the sale of its London Hammersmith Apollo for £32 million.
Plus Markets, the stricken market for companies too small even for AIM, where its own shares are its listed, snubbed takeover interest from Gulf Merchant Bank in favour of a bid agreed a fortnight ago with Icap, Michael Spencer’s interdealer broker. Shares in Plus, which changed hands for 38¾p in the heady days of 2006, were unchanged at 0.425p. Should Icap walk away, Plus shareholders are unlikely to get back a bean.
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After ending talks with potential buyers this week, there was speculation that a hostile move for Ithaca Energy was possible. Whether shrewd call or wishful thinking, the North Sea oil company shed 1¾p to 111¼p.
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New York: Stocks plunged after a surprisingly weak jobs report added to fears about a global economic slowdown and sent the Dow Jones industrial average into negative territory for the year. At midday, the Dow stood at 12,189.59 points, down 203.86.