A quiet Friday afternoon in the middle of high summer, with a long Bank holiday weekend looming, and London's equity market was spooked by another big sell-off on Wall Street.

The latest tumble in New York saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 120 points only minutes after the start of US trading and causing widespread markdowns across a UK stock market already bruised by concerns about weakness in global bond markets.

At the close of a busy session in London, the FTSE 100 was left with a 76.9 decline at 4,901.1, a fall of 35.3, or 0.7 per cent, over a week which has seen the equity market fall sharply before rallying, as concerns about global interest rates waned.

Second-line stocks and small cap issues also lost ground but were not as badly mauled as the market's leaders. The FTSE 250 index lost 29.3 at 4,658.7, a fall of 39.5 on the week. The FTSE SmallCap dipped 5.6 to 2,253.4, a rise of 10.0 on the week.

The Dow's retreat came as no surprise to market observers in London who pointed out that before yesterday's performance, the average fall in the Dow Jones Average was 113 points over the last five Fridays.

Turnover in the market yesterday reached 855.8 million shares.