It was another typical summer's day in the stock market yesterday with investors and traders mostly unwilling to make any big bets on the market and sentiment consequently deteriorating after a reasonably bright start to the session.
At the end of the trading session, the FTSE 100 index just failed to cling on to the 5,400 level, eventually settling a net 12.2 lower at 5,396.5, having reached a day's best of 5,422.4 during the first few minutes of trading and fallen to a low point of 5,371.0 at its worst, around midday.
It was much the same for the rest of the main indices. The FTSE 250 moved in a 10-point range, prior to ending the day 3.1 firmer at 6,162.9, while the FTSE SmallCap was locked in a 3 points trading range, finishing 6.9 off at 2,723.1. The Techmark 100 ended 3.02 ahead at 1,494.47.
Helping to undermine the market's early strength was a gloomy picture of UK manufacturing painted by the latest monthly Survey of Industrial Trends published by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). The survey highlighted falling manufacturing demand, which fell to its lowest level since 1999. Mr Daniel Kaye, UK economist at Capital Economics, said the downturn "somewhat dented" recent speculation that the worst of the slowdown in the sector is over.
The market's initial uptick was mostly derived from Wall Street's late surge overnight, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average overcame an earlier near 40-point fall to finish the session with a three-figure gain on balance, as US investors chased the more defensive stocks. Yesterday's lacklustre opening by Wall Street, where the Dow and the Nasdaq both slipped back, added to the lethargy being shown in London. The market's retreat was made worse by renewed weakness in a handful of the TMT stocks.
The three worst individual performances in the FTSE 100 index came from Colt Telecom, Marconi and Telewest.
Turnover in equities was a poor 1.5 billion shares.
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