Kelda shares have risen this week in spite of news that water companies have been excluded from the new Utility Regulation Bill.

The surprise announcement creates regulatory uncertainty for the sector, but Kelda's 8.3 per cent net yield seems to have attracted buyers over the week.

The last-minute decision appears to have been the result of a clash between John Prescott and Stephen Byers, the Trade and Industry Secretary, over how tightly to regulate the water companies in future.

The National Consumer Council condemned the eleventh-hour change of mind as a major setback for consumers. Telecommunications companies are also being excluded, so that the bill will only cover electricity and gas.

After last week's results, Provident Financial have taken advantage of the recent weakness in the share price to buy back over 4.6 million shares at between 513p and 515p.

This takes the total number bought back since October to almost 10.6 million. Share buybacks have become increasingly common among UK companies as a use of surplus cash. By cancelling the shares, the company reduces the number of shares in issue, theoretically increasing the crucial Earnings per share figure studied by City analysts.

Many sectors however have continued their decline of recent months, as investors continued to build weightings in Vodafone Airtouch, capitalised at over £180 billion, and in technology companies across the board.

The chairman of engineering company TI Group warned it will consider taking itself private if the poor rating given to its shares persists for long, and the number of companies thinking like this is very significant.

In a letter to the Financial Times the GKN chairman referred to a recent description of fund managers being like lemmings ready to jump off a cliff, preferring the description of lemmings that go to the bottom of a cliff and seek to throw themselves up to the top.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.