After a year of pain, the City finds it's drugs which please

Despite most stocks having had rather a bumpy ride over the past 12 months, it has been a year in which the drugs have very much worked.

The outstanding performer has been Shire, which today advanced 5p to 2172½p. With only two-and-a-half sessions of trading taking place next week, the drug-maker seems certain to be crowned the Footsie's best-performing stock of the year, having managed to add more than 40%.

And Merchant Securities' Navid Malik has calculated that of the Stoxx 600 index of European companies, the healthcare sector has been by far the most rewarding, providing a return of roughly 9%.

Not that all pharma companies were in a festive mood today, however. Playing the part of the grinch was SkyePharma as it lost more than 18% of its share price by slipping 7¼p to 32p on the fledgling index after being told it could have to wait up to nine months to find out whether its asthma therapy Flutiform will be approved.

With it being just a half day of trading before Christmas, those dealers forced to come into work were eyeing up the safety of the defensive stocks as utility National Grid climbed 12½p to 615½p and Grolsch-brewer SABMiller frothed up 34½p to 2223p.

The FTSE 100 itself managed to keep a "Santa rally" of sorts going, easing up a further 23.68 points to 5480.65 after rising more than 65 points yesterday.

The news that the Government wants to ban "excessive" fees for debit or credit card purchases saw easyJet dip 1.2p to 386.8p on the mid-tier index.

Although he said there was a chance the budget airline could replace the money the fees bring in by increasing either flight prices or add-on charges, Charles Stanley's Douglas McNeill warned "life's rarely that simple" and claimed the City was underestimating the potential risk to revenues.

After shifting up more than 10% yesterday - a move which traders put down to a short squeeze - Carpetright was tracked back 23.7p to 489.5p, The troubled floor-coverings retailer will not have been cheered by cautious comments from its smaller AIM-listed rival United Carpets, which was ¼p worse off at 5¾p despite its interim results meeting expectations.

Elsewhere, a placing by Galileo Resources left the minerals explorer 7½p, or 16.3%, weaker at 38½p, as the group raised £1.7 million.