There were some badly burnt fingers in the London stock market yesterday as Marconi shares returned from Wednesday's shock suspension at less than half their value on Tuesday afternoon.
And to make matters worse, Marconi's woes infected the rest of the rest of the market, especially an already-bruised TMT grouping, which sustained another wounding blow from one of its former stars, Baltimore Technologies, which issued a revenue warning along with news of job losses.
Baltimore enjoyed a meteoric rise at the height of the TMT frenzy last year, its shares streaking to a record £13.75 and gaining FTSE 100 status, before embarking on a prolonged slide with many other TMTs.
There were more grim warnings, too, from other stocks, including Aegis Group, the advertising company.
Burdened by that flurry of bearish news it was no surprise that all the main indices endured a painful session, none more so than a battered Techmark 100 index, which slumped a further 67.47, or 4 per cent, to 1,600.78, yet another record low.
The FTSE 100 was left nursing another confidence-sapping decline, and was down 50.9 at 5,549.6, its lowest closing level since April 4, having fallen to 5,509.7 in mid-morning. The FTSE 250 dropped 64.2 to 6,201.7 and the SmallCap 43.4 to 2,862.5.
Wall Street, returning from its Independence Day break, offered no help to London, the Dow weakening and posting a three-figure decline shortly after London closed.
Adding to the general mood of gloom, but no real surprise to the market, was the announcement from the Bank of England's monetary policy committee that it had decided to leave interest rates on hold.
The only areas of the London market to enjoy any real support were the traditionally defensive sectors, such as the food retailers, utilities and insurance stocks. And the oils continued to make good progress.
In its regular monthly equity market analysis, the U K Strategy Team at Deutsche Bank says a stream of profit downgrades is continuing to dampen investor confidence.
