QXL Ricardo hit a record high after Cazenove started coverage of the dot-com bubble survivor with an “outperform” rating and a price target 50 per cent above current levels.

The online auction house has been something of an embarrasment for the analyst community, with no research whatsoever from the big brokerages since 2002. Over that time, the shares have risen by 14,000 per cent.

They put on a further 128½p at £11.29 yesterday as Cazenove set out estimates for the new-look QXL, which has abandoned ambitions of taking on eBay to focus on its leading positions in Poland, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway. Cazenove forecast annual earnings growth of 42 per cent over the next five years, leading it to a share price target of £14.36.

Raymarine, which makes boat radars and satellite equipment, eased 3p to 437p on profit worries before a trading update expected tomorrow. Several of its American peers have cut forecasts recently.

Sanctuary inched up ¼p to 10½p as traders gave little credence to a rumour that the music publishing and management company could be the subject to a takeover bid at about 20p. MAMA Group, its AIM-listed rival, would be free to make another approach having pulled out of takeover talks last October, Manganese Bronze, the London taxi maker, rose 7p to £75.62 on a tip from Kaupthing, which said that the group’s joint venture with Geely, the Chinese manufacturer, has the potential to transform its profitability. Success would push the tightly held shares higher “by a factor of two or three”, it told clients.

Coastal Energy dropped 5½p to 33p after confirming that test drilling at its flagship gasfield in Thailand had been unsuccessful – the same news delivered a day earlier by its site partner Salamander Energy, which fell 1p to 222p.

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