It was hardly the stuff of vigorous investigative journalism. For five years, articles put out by Reed Elsevier, the giant scientific and trade magazine publisher, were, in fact, paid for by pharmaceutical companies. The news broke two months ago, since when the shares have fallen by 18 per cent.

Michael Hansen, head of the company’s health sciences division, said at the time that he was conducting a review, but he believed that it was an isolated practice at the Australian office that had stopped in 2005. The admission received little attention because it was made after the market closed, but the shares slid the following day and have been on a downward trend ever since.

On Friday in a flat market, they suddenly picked up, rising nearly 4 per cent, or 17¼p, to 457¼p after Credit Suisse said that it was time to buy back in. Although Nick Bertolotti, the analyst, did not address the Australian issue, he said that Reed’s shares had fallen so low that they looked compelling, since they had been unfairly tarnished by falls in more advertising-dependent media stocks. He also believes that with Ian Smith on board as the new chief executive, the prospect for a merger with Wolters Kluwer and considerable cost savings is back on the agenda.

The FTSE 100 drifted with little sense of direction and closed up only 2.01 points at 4,236.28.

Rising bank stocks were counterweighted by falling mining and commodity stocks as metals and oil prices continued to slide, driven by Thursday’s weak American employment figures and high levels of gasoline (petrol) inventory.

Barclays was lifted 8p higher to 297p by the need for tracking funds to buy extra shares, since the bank’s weighting in the FTSE 100 index will increase after an extra 1.3 billion shares, issued to satisfy its Middle Eastern rescue loan, begin trading on Monday. Some traders are cautious as the new shares end a restriction on the bank issuing yet more equity. It may be tempted to do so, given the extraordinary rise in the share price since it bottomed at 50p in January.

Lloyds Banking Group rose 1.6p to 67½p, in sympathy, despite Cazenove saying “sell into any strength” since a housing market recovery is probably a false dawn. However, UBS reiterated its 107p price target, saying that the market was underestimating the speed at which Lloyds could recover after taking a £13 billion writedown on bad loans for the first half of this year.

Thin trading meant that William Hill lost ½p to 197¾p and Ladbrokes was unchanged at 182¾p even though the Gambling Commission reported to the Government that it had found very little evidence of a direct link with high-pay-out gambling machines and gambling addiction. Both bookies have been held back by fears that the commission would recommend a crackdown on machines. Daniel Stewart’s James Hollins reiterated “buy” advice on William Hill.

The London Stock Exchange rebounded 9p to 672½p even though Citigroup said that its tariff cuts were not big enough to stave off market share losses. Yell Group fell another 1½p to 22¼p after Moody’s followed Standard & Poor’s in downgrading its credit rating.

New York: Wall Street was closed for the Independence Day holiday.

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