Never mind the credit crunch, Home Retail Group (HRG) - the owner of Argos - Tesco and Woolworths will have their best Christmas ever.

That was the word from Panmure Gordon’s retail team yesterday. Philip Dorgan added: “This is actually one of our more conservative predictions.”

Every year, commentators fret over the increasing late spending pattern, he said, but every year Christmas breaks spending records. Nevertheless, he believes that HRG, Tesco and Woolworths will be particular winners this season and his call was seen by many as time to close their short positions since prices have fallen a long way.

Kingfisher, up 6p at 158.3p, HRG, up 11p at 358p, Wm Morrison, up 6½p at 315p, and Tesco, up 8½p at 487½p, were four leading risers in the blue chips on a day when the FTSE 100 fell 45.9 points to 6,386.6, led down by a series of profit warnings from leisure and retail-related stocks. Woolworths rose 1¼p to 16p.

Talk of a management buyout at 600p at Barratt Developments, up 3½p at 469p, helped it to buck the falling market. Directors bought shares at 680p in mid-October and the company has recently been buying back shares. Analysts questioned whether any private equity house would take a bet on the company with interest rates and house prices so uncertain.

ScS Upholstery fell 14p to 98p after giving warning of a consumer slow-down. Regent Inns, off 17¾p at 25p, and Clapham House, the owner of Tootsies restaurants, which closed down 98½p at 150p, both said that sales had dived in recent weeks. That sent Mitchells & Butlers down 30½p to 546½p, with Numis cutting its target price to 581p from 638p. It said putting properties into a real estate investment trust may be a problem with a £250 million pension deficit.

Enterprise Innslost 25p to 507p and Whitbread fell 41p to £14.00, also hit by a Citigroup downgrade. Citigroup said: “Pub restaurants could face softer demand in 2008 . . . We believe Whitbread will struggle to complete its asset-backed bond issue.”

Morgan Crucible, the maker of industrial ceramics, unsettled the industrial sector by revealing that the weak dollar had taken a toll on profits and saying that it saw signs of softening industrial demand in the United States and Europe. It plunged 61¼p to 200¼p. Severfield Rowen, the structured steel producer, was down 42½p at 463½p in sympathy.

Francisco Blanch, of Merrill Lynch, said that soaring “wet” freight rates from the Gulf indicated a rise in Opec crude shipments and a lower oil price was on the way. This knocked Tullow Oil from recent highs, off 19½p to 651½p.

Rank soared 8¾p to 110½p after Genting, the Malaysian operator, said that it had a 10 per cent stake. Ivor Jones, of Evolution, suggested that Genting might want to negotiate the purchase of Rank’s casinos, leaving Rank with the cash to turn around its bingo halls. Sports Direct Internationalwas up 1p at 103p on talk of a bid for Adidas from Nike and Asics.

New York: Wall Street was under modest pressure, buffeted by worries over the economy and the outlook for corporate earnings. At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 57.10 points at 13,314.60.

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