Nearly two-thirds of Britain’s biggest companies beat analysts’ earnings forecasts last year, and City expectations matched results in just 7 per cent of cases.

According to Parson Consulting, a financial management group, 37 per cent of FTSE 100 companies beat analyst forecasts for 2004 by more than 10 per cent, while earnings at 27 per cent came in between 1 and 10 per cent ahead of expectations.