FTSE slips back after staging its best pre-Christmas rally for 23 years

Cazenove Capital Management today revealed that it has snapped up 7.93% of Manroy, the Sussex-based weapons manufacturer that supplies the Ministry of Defence.

Manroy began trading on AIM on Wednesday after a reverse takeover of Manroy Systems by shell company Hurlingham and raised £6 million to fund a move into pistols and bolt-action rifles. Its shares, which were placed at 75p, are now changing hands for 77½p.

Equities in London slipped back — having broken through the psychologically important 6000 mark yesterday afternoon — with the FTSE 100 shedding 12.33 points to 5983.74. Trading rooms were, unsurprisingly, peaceful: "The market is so quiet that it doesn't feel like it has even opened yet," said one trader, through a mouthful of mince pie.

"And everyone either wants to go home or to the pub."

Father Christmas has been especially generous to investors this year, however: the benchmark has enjoyed its strongest December rally since 1987, rising 8.2% so far this month.

Will 2011 be the year Smith & Nephew finally falls into foreign hands? Shares in the artificial-hip maker shot up 7p to 680p on reheated chatter that it was on the wish list of a rival.

This time, it was again whispered to be Johnson & Johnson, said to be willing to fork out 850p a pop. A group of private equity firms is also rumoured to be teaming up for a bid.

S&N is often the subject of takeover talk, prompting scepticism from one trader: "We've seen no business in it. It sounds to me like people trying to find something to talk about because there is nothing else."

There was no festive cheer for Randgold Resources, which dropped 295p to 5250p to take the blue chip's wooden spoon. The gold miner has admitted that tensions in the Ivory Coast would hurt gold production. GKN was another of Christmas Eve's laggards, losing 9.1p to 217.6p.

The car-parts maker suffered after Beijing prepared to introduce a quota to limit car ownership.

The Chinese capital will only issue 240,000 licences next year in a bid to combat congestion. The move has prompted frenzied buying this week, however.

Gossips claimed that one man who will be having a very happy Christmas indeed was analyst-turned-investor Ali Mortazavi.

At the start of the week, it emerged Mortazavi had taken a 7% stake in gas storage group Infrastrata.

It is believed that he sold the bulk of his shares in the company today, having made a handsome profit.

Infrastrata ticked up 1½p to 21p.