Any lingering hopes that Monday's late sell-off would prove a temporary affair were dashed yesterday as worries about increasing regulation and competition concerns nagged away at investors' confidence.

Following dreadful US trade figures, the Dow went into steep decline. The FTSE 100 index followed suit. Registering its third consecutive fall, it slipped 98.8 at its worst of the day, before stabilising. It eventually finished 91.7 down, dropping back through the 6,400 level to end at 6,392.0.

Weakness also affected the FTSE SmallCap which closed a modest 1.6 off at 2,743.7. The market was not without some excellent individual performers. Reed International stole the honours. Turnover, boosted by the programme trades and heavy trading in some of the market's smaller stocks, notably Chorion, which accounted for 124 million or 10 per cent of the total, reached 1.23 billion shares.