Burdened by another flurry of weakness in the international superstocks such as Vodafone and GlaxoSmithKline, plus marked weakness in most of the TMTs and many of the old-economy stocks, it was always going to be tough for London's equity market.
And with last week's three main events - the FTSE indices rejig, the Bank of England's monetary policy meeting and the general election - causing absolutely no surprises, city dealers were looking elsewhere for inspiration.
Casting around for excuses to buy the market, and persuade their clients to do likewise, they found very few.
So with US markets on the slide again yesterday afternoon and some of the crucial areas of the FTSE 100 index under pressure, the 100 index again fell back through a crucial psychological level of 5,900 and closed just a fraction off a session low.
It finished 90.1 down at 5,860.5, having been down to 5,858.3 at its worst, when the Dow was down more than three figures.
Widespread weakness in the TMTs ensured a dismal session for the Techmark 100 index, which lost 60.33, or 2.9 per cent, to 2,004.67, just managing to avoid dropping below the 2,000 level.
The failure of the FTSE 100's most recent drive towards the 6,000 level brought renewed anguish to market bulls banking on a post-election drive through that now-elusive level.
But every failure to push through 6,000 is seen as diminishing the market's enthusiasm to back another run at that figure.
"The market is full of cash and it wants to go better but it keeps getting driven back by bad news; if it could get its head above 6,000 I'm sure it would run on but it is just a question of topping the big number," a salesman at a leading US investment bank said.
Another bear point for London was the slide in the stock prices of Lloyds TSB and Abbey National amid reports that the Competition Commission, which passes its recommendation on the proposed Lloyds bid for Abbey today, will advise the DTI to block the move on competition grounds. Abbey National and Lloyds TSB shares have been strong performers in the past couple of weeks.
Turnover in London equities was a reasonable 1.7 billion shares.
