The London market's response to the news of another 50 basis points reduction in US interest rates, the third so far this year, was exactly the same as that of Wall Street: one of acute disappointment at the extent of the cut.
And that disappointment manifested itself in a resumption of the debilitating downward trend in stock prices which has hammered the market's confidence so badly in recent weeks. Even more worrying for investors and dealers was the extent of the selling, which spread right across the board and affected all the main indices.
Wall Street followed up the overnight 238 points slide in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the 93 points retreat by the Nasdaq Composite with another poor performance, which saw the Dow plunge another 150 points and the Nasdaq slip 20 points shortly after London closed for the day.
As the curtain came down on another dire showing by the London market, the FTSE 100 had managed to scramble back over the 5,500 level - it had dropped to a session low of 5,496.0, down 150.8 - and eventually closed the session a net 106.1 off at 5,540.7. That left the index down more than 20 per cent from its peak.
The other main indices were all in the same boat. The worst of the bunch was the Techmark 100 which continued to flounder and dropped another 72.65, or 3.7 per cent, to hit a record low of 1,976.65, burdened by the latest relentless downside pressure on TMT stocks. There was no escape either for the mid and smallcap stocks when the FTSE 250 retreated 114.7, or 1.8 per cent, to 6,104.2, and the SmallCap index 48.5, or 1.6 per cent, to 2,931.4.
The Bank of England published the minutes of the March meeting of its monetary policy committee (mpc) which showed that two of its members voted for a 25 basis points cut in UK interest rates. The next meeting of the mpc is scheduled for April 4th and 5th.
The telecoms stocks, and especially BT, were given a real mauling, with BT shares sliding another 5 per cent amid renewed speculation about the direction of the company and its senior executives, given its crushing debt burden.
Turnover in equities was 2.02 billion shares by the 6 p.m. count.
