NEVER mind that a volatile stock market flip-flopped ending with more flop than flip on the day. Nothing was going to shift the Supershare ice pack, and certainly nothing was going to topple Sonja Fenning, that 1992 Supershare supreme champion, from top spot this weekend.

AGAIN she wins the £50 daily Supershare prize from sponsors Walsh Lucas, the independent financial advisers of Micklegate, York.

AGAIN her husband Ian is in third place, making a Fenning sandwich of runner-up, 17-year-old York Sixth Form College student Matthew Wilson of Sutor Close, Copmanthorpe.

AGAIN she is poised to take the hat-trick with an eye to the final top prize of £2,000 for the biggest portfolio at the end of March

The only difference in the top five is that unemployed army accountant Bob Mayes of Woodlea Avenue, Acomb, leapt from 23 in the Top 100 on Thursday to the number four spot today, elbowing out Ian Fenning into fifth place (and proving it can be done!). In a previous Supershare competition he was also a winner-of-the-day

Sonja, a 36-year-old library assistant at the University of York's JB Morell Library, lives with Ian, a General Accident systems analyst and their children, Andrew, nine and Samantha 12 in Sussex Road, Badger Hill. She says: "I really wasn't expecting to win a second time. Ian thought that he may have overtaken me but not this time.

"There's no rivalry. Supershare has almost become a family past-time. We both choose the portfolios after discussion and the children cut out the entry forms.

"Of course we hope to stay up there long enough to win the competition but there is no telling the way that the market moves."

Meanwhile young Ian, fed up with being sandwiched in second place between the Fennings, says: "I'm confident I'll throw off the Fenning grip; that eventually our youth and sheer shares cunning will prevail."

By "our" Matthew means himself and college pal, Paul Walton, also of Copmanthorpe, with whom he shares a Supershare syndicate. Paul, sixth place on Friday, remains at sixth place now.

By a strange irony - or is it logic? - the top three in the Supershare 100 all submitted the same choices on their portfolios. Only the amounts differ: Namely Asda, British Telecom, Kingfisher and Spring Ram.

Barrie Bluck, of Leeds-based stockbrokers Redmayne Bentley described yesterday (Friday's) stock exchange dealings as "very volatile.".

He added: "Having broken through the record-breaking 6,000 barrier at 6,105 it fell back with profit-taking to end 41 points down at the close at 5,956."

Interesting Supershare highlights: Even though Dixons was voted out of the FTSE 100 last week it increased 26 p to 506 p; suddenly, Iceland thawed and soared, by 17p to 170 p; Kingfisher, still basking in good results glory, was this time up 12p to 1,152p; and General Accident continued its progress, up by 13p to 1487.5p.

Readers keep entering in droves because they realise that anything can happen to the market between now and the end of the month.

By 3pm yesterday Friday 16,628 Supershare entries had reached the Evening Press. A heavy weekend post is expected to swell the total to a figure approaching 19,000.

The competition's popularity has stunned Hamish Mundie, northern regional manager of Framlington Unit Trust Management Ltd which has donated the runner-up prize of £1,000 worth of investments in its Financial Fund.

He said: "This beats most national competitions hands down. It is a tribute to Walsh Lucas & Company and the financial awareness of the readers of the Evening Press. We're delighted to be associated with such an exciting competition."

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