Shares: Taking Stock

Each week Emerald Energy, the oil hopeful, issues a statement about its drilling in Colombia. The idea is to prevent the rumour mill sending out what could be false signals. But mobile telephones may be beating the company. Chairman Iain Alexander believes handsets from the depth of the Colombian jungle are providing the City with more frequent progress reports than the weekly one offered by Emerald. Whether radio phones were in action yesterday is not yet clear but Emerald jumped 0.75p to 5.75p in busy trading. The company's communique is due tomorrow.

VFG, supplying film equipment for such shows as Coronation Street and Peak Practice, held at 38.5p as stockbroker Ellis & Partners forecast profits this year would top pounds 1m against pounds 266,000.