London's equity market continued to suffer from its post-Greenspan hangover, with all the main indices taking more punishment, none more so than the Techmark 100, which fell to an all-time low.
The UK's FTSE 100 index dropped below the 5,900 level for much of the session, before scrambling over that point during the post-session auction. At the finish of the session the FTSE 100 was 9.3 easier at 5,908.6, having fallen to 5,868.1 at worst. The FTSE 250 lost 43.4 to 6,606.1, the SmallCap 20.0 to 3,170.9 and the Techmark 100 50.95 to 2,252.42. There was no reason for the market's lacklustre showing other than the testimony delivered by the Federal Reserve's chairman to the House of Representatives on Wednesday. The lack of a positive indication of an imminent cut in US rates, plus some more dire corporate news from the US, where the flow of profit warnings never ceases, drove Wall Street sharply lower on Wednesday and again yesterday.
The economic data announced yesterday on both sides of the Atlantic posed no real problems. In London, the CIPS survey of manufacturing for February came in a shade higher and caused few ripples across the market, nor did the monthly Confederation of British Industry survey of distributive trades.
In the US the purchasing managers' index edged higher, although still indicating a sharp fall in manufacturing activity, while construction spending rose 1.5 per cent on the month.
Salesmen and market makers were frustrated with the performance of London and New York. "It is increasingly difficult to get fund managers interested in buying the market because of the constant flow of profit warnings from the US," said one salesman.
It was a grim session for many of the tech stocks. Misys shares plummeted ahead of a presentation today and there was more pain for Marconi, still being hit by recent broker downgrades. Psion, one of the stars of the TMT boom, saw its shares in full retreat.
Turnover was 2.17 billion shares.