It was another down day for London's equity market. It was not as bad as Thursday's big sell-off, which saw the FTSE 100 down 2.2 per cent and the Techmark 100 4.2 per cent lower, but still uncomfortable for the ever-decreasing number of bulls on the TMT sector.

For a while it looked as if London could be in for real trouble, but the double expiry of the FTSE 100 future and index options brought some much needed, if only temporary, support for the market. And at one point, just before midday the FTSE 100 nudged into positive territory as London dealers began to look forward to a more neutral opening by Wall Street.

A weak opening to Wall Street quickly put paid to those hopes, however, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite quickly coming under pressure. Behind the latest decline on Wall Street was a mixture of bleak corporate and economic news. The profits warning from Microsoft, announced after US market hours on Thursday, was the main cause of the falls in the Dow and the Nasdaq.

But there was another, economic, factor brought into the market equation as the November US Consumer price index data affected the general view that US interest rates are now on a downward path, after the recent evidence of a slowdown in the US economy.

The US CPI for November rose 0.2 per cent, in line with the consensus forecast, but there was a stronger than expected increase in the core inflation figure, which edged up 0.3 per cent. Next Tuesday brings the December meeting of the US Federal Reserve's rate-setting open market committee. There has been a growing feeling in the market that the FOMC might sanction a shift to a neutral or more benign stance on interest rate policy.

Once again it was the Techmark 100 that was the worst of the indices, retreating a further 64.73 off at 2,628.32.

Over the week the FTSE 100 has fallen 112.7, or 1.8 per cent, mirroring the anti-climax over the outcome of the George Bush victory in the long drawn out US presidential election, plus the follow through of Wall Street worries about profit warnings.

And the FTSE 250 has dipped 83.5, or 1.3 per cent. But by far the worst of the indices has been the Techmark 100 which has plummeted 165.91, or 5.9 per cent, in the wake of the constant flow of warnings from tech stocks.

Turnover in equities was 1.9 billion shares.