Sentiment fails as City prepares for rate cut

There was more than an element of uncertainty in London's stock market yesterday as the blue chips saw an early gain quickly wiped out and replaced by hefty losses.

During the trading session, the FTSE 100 index moved in a band of 125 points, an early gain of 35 points eventually being replaced by a 90-point fall. At the final bell, the index had rallied a shade to end a net 72.7 lower at 5,940.3, its first overall decline in four sessions.

The FTSE 250's rally, which had driven the index up more than 300 points, carried on during the morning, only to evaporate in the afternoon. The index settled 2.1 off at 5,213.2, having reached 5,231.4 at its best.

Dealers said the market was still optimistic that the two-day meeting of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, which ends this morning, will see the committee sanction a further 25 basis points reduction in British interest rates, the fifth reduction in as many months.

Turnover in the equity market continued to please its participants, topping the one billion shares mark again and eventually reaching 1.16 billion shares by the 6 p.m. count, with FTSE 100 stocks accounting for 52 per cent of the total.