HBOS seems destined to end 2008 with the title that everybody in the FTSE 100 would have wanted to avoid – that of the worst-performing stock of the index’s worst year – after sliding a further 2 per cent yesterday.

The reason for its latest fall? Concerns that HBOS’s growing pension deficit could throw a last-minute spanner into the works of its takeover by Lloyds TSB. HBOS pension trustees are understood to be considering legal action to delay the takeover until they receive cast-iron guarantees over funding. The shares’ 1.6p slip to 69p took their fall for the year to just over 90 per cent.

Yet London’s leading index closed up 73.33 points at 4,392.68 on the City’s last full day of trading as oil stocks and miners rebounded from near-lows despite a slide in the oil price. It has fallen by 33 per cent over the year. Today’s half-day trading is unlikely to rescue it from its worst annual performance since it began in 1984.

There are mounting worries that Sir Stuart Rose, Marks & Spencer’s executive chairman, will have to issue a profit warning next Wednesday, since last-ditch promotions have hit the chain’s margins and left it short of stock for the January sales. However, thin trading meant that this worry was not reflected in its share price, which rose 4p to 214p in line with the retail sector.

Hochschild Mining, the Peruvian silver miner, was the best performer in natural resources, up 10¼p, or 10.5 per cent, at 107¼p as investors bet that next year would be good for precious metals. Unlike Randgold Resources, off 8p at £29.92, one of the year’s top-performing miners, Hochschild has fallen about 75 per cent amid worries about rising costs and lack of resource.

Rolls-Royce rose 8p to 332¼p after winning a $221.7 million (£154 million) contract from the US Navy and a contract to supply turbodrives for Gazprom’s gas pipeline to Europe.

Cattles recovered another 10 per cent, rising 1½p to 16p, amid vague talk that the lender may be able to win a banking licence from the Financial Services Authority. First it must persuade banks to roll over at least some of its £500 million debt due by July.

Bovis Homes fell 14p to 380½p despite signing a new loan deal with its banks. The interest costs of the loan will have soared and analysts believe that the deal only delays, rather than removes, the need for an eventual debt-for-equity swap. Land Registry data showed another slump in house prices in November. Taylor Wimpey fell ¼p to 13p and Persimmon 2¾p to 233¾p.

Chaucer, the Lloyd’s insurer, rose 5½p to 50p amid persistent bid talk. Although Amlin has effectively ruled itself out as a predator after director dealing, Ariel, the Bermudian reinsurer, is rumoured to be interested. The rival Brit Insurance fell 21p to 220p, returning to normal levels after a spike on Monday.

Mapeley rebounded from near-record lows, rising 32p to 115p after Paul Collins, its chief operating officer, disclosed that he had bought 10,000 shares at 75p on Monday. The property group’s shares were worth £14 at the start of the year.

New York: US stocks rose after Washington expanded its bailout of the motor industry, boosting hopes that the Government can limit the severity of the recession. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 184.46 points at 8,668.39.

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