It was a gloomy end to a gloomy week for London's stock market as the constant flow of bad news from the US continued to drain the confidence from investors on both sides of the Atlantic.
As always London could not ignore the pressures from the US, despite some encouraging company results. The FTSE 100 made a brave effort at a rally in mid-morning, only to drop away again and post a 79.1 decline before steadying to finish a net 50.0 lower at 5,858.6 its lowest closing level since February 10th 1999. Over the week the 100 index fell 85.1 points, or 1.4 per cent.
There were further losses for the other main indices, with the FTSE 250 index, down 22.7 at 6,583.4 yesterday, retreating 42.2 over the five days, and the FTSE SmallCap, which lost 14.5 to 3,156.4 yesterday, posting a 31.68 decline over the week. The Techmark 100 dipped into the red towards the finish yesterday, closing 3.99 off at 2,248.43, after falling 47.23 over the week.
The latest flurry of corporate profit warnings on Thursday evening came from Oracle, the software group, SBC, the telecoms giant and US Airways and brought a fresh bout of downside pressure to bear on Wall Street markets still suffering from its midweek hangover.
That had been triggered by disappointment with the content of the testimony delivered on Wednesday by Mr Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, to the House of Representatives.
Wall Street had made rapid progress running up to the Greenspan testimony amid strong rumours that the Fed chairman would flag another deep cut in US interest rates in the short term to try to apply the brakes to the pace of the slowdown in the US economy.
US markets held their own on Thursday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 45 points but the Nasdaq rallied 31 points.
The mood on Wall Street swung around substantially yesterday, however, the Dow plunging 147 points, hit by more dismal company news, before picking up to post a 50-points gain not long after London closed. The Nasdaq, however, was always under pressure. The Techmark 100 hit another record closing low yesterday.
