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however, there is no silver bullet to take out Rexam's traditional foes: all year, the falling dollar, rising energy costs and increasing commodity prices have been sniping at the company's bottom line. But these pressures, surely, were already built into the share price. The stock had fallen 14 per cent between the start of October and Wednesday's close. Why would it tumble a further 16 per cent yesterday on what looked at first glance like minor adjustments to the outlook? Blame the gloomy mood of the market ready to punish even comparatively small amendments to expectations. Most analysts had already discounted a difficult 2007, but they may not have expected 2008 to open under the shadow of higher freight and raw material costs, however wellhedged. As a company, Rexam continues to pour on capital expenditure 300m ($612m) this year, and the same amount next. As a board, directors showed their confidence yesterday by buying the shares at their knockdown price/earnings ratio of between 11 and 12 times forecast earnings for 2008. The shares ought to be attractive to other investors but, for the moment.
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