FTSE loses pace as Wall Street retreats

Another rally attempt by the FTSE 100 index petered out and the blue-chip benchmark duly suffered its sixth consecutive fall.

But the loss was limited to just one point and the other main indices all managed to end the day ahead.

Technology stocks staged one of their occasional rallies with Sage, CMG and Misys among the five best performing stocks in the FTSE 100. The Techmark 100 index of leading technology stocks gained 28.48 to 1,586.46.

The overall market made an attempt to advance in the morning with Footsie reaching its best level of the day, up 40.5 at 5,509.4, just before Wall Street opened. But after some early strength, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite were both in retreat by the London close.

The FTSE 100 ended at 5,467.9, its lowest close since April 3rd, but the FTSE 250 advanced 26.6 to 6,154.8 and the SmallCap rose 5.4 to 2,807.1. The strength of technology stocks was offset by weakness in the oil giants BP and Shell.

There was some moderately positive news in the form of a weaker-than-expected survey from the British Retail Consortium. The BRC found that retail sales growth had slowed to 5.7 per cent in June, from 7.1 per cent in May.

The big news in the corporate sector was the blocking of the Lloyds TSB/Abbey National merger by the government. But the widely-expected move did not have a big effect on share prices.

Terence Chapman Group and Orbital Software were the latest technology companies to issue profit warnings, causing sharp falls in their respective share prices. But Baltimore Technologies, once a FTSE 100 stock, rebounded sharply as its chief executive departed.

Worries about corporate profits continue to be one of the factors holding back the market, especially in the wake of last week's warning from Marconi.

Vodafone and Marconi were once again the most active stocks.