The big domestic and international institutions stood back from London and most of the other major European equity markets yesterday, preferring to wait and see how Wall Street digested the recent batch of important corporate news reports from the US.
In the event, Wall Street's response yesterday to fourth-quarter figures from Dell and Hewlett-Packard, released on Tuesday, was initially bearish, driving the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other US indices lower. The US market made rapid progress on London's close.
After four winning sessions, the FTSE 100 suffered from persistent pockets of profit-taking, which drove the index down to a session low of 6,040.7, down 67.9. A late rally took it back briefly into positive ground only to see the leaders drift off again and leave the Footsie 30.2 lower at 6,078.4.
The minutes of the February meeting of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, after which rates were cut by 50 basis points, were seen be some as indicating a further fall in coming months.
Dealers insisted there was never any real downside pressure being exerted on the London market, a view reinforced by the relatively low level of activity in the market yesterday. Turnover at 6 p.m. was 966 million shares, with volume in the FTSE 100 constituents accounting for 55 per cent of overall business.
