The air of uncertainty that has surrounded London's equity market in recent sessions continued yesterday, with share prices darting both ways during erratic trade before settling marginally lower. Behind that performance was Wall Street, where a two-day losing sequence - which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average drop 300 points - was halted at the outset of trading yesterday, when the Dow ran up strongly. However, many still expect a sharp correction in US stock prices.
The FTSE 100 and all the other FTSE indices moved erratically throughout the trading session, with the bench-mark FTSE 100 index ending the day a net 12.5 easier at 6,236.8. Over the past four sessions the index has lost 131.4, or 2.1 per cent.
Similarly, the other FTSE indices ended in the red. The FTSE All-Share index eased 5.18 at 2,894.77, having been up 15.71 at best, and down 27.51 at the worst of the day. The junior indices also ended down, the FTSE 250 finally 1.3 off at 5,652.4 - it was 8.5 up at one point yesterday - while the FTSE SmallCap closed 7.5 off at 2,549.9, only a fraction off the day's worst. The market's initial gain was a reflection of a series of small takeover bids, positive trading updates and corporate news.
Turnover in equities just topped the 1 billion-mark, settling at 1.05 billion, with non-FTSE 100 stocks accounting for 46 per cent of the overall figure.
