The London market made a sluggish start to the week today, weighed down by falls in banking and telecom stocks.
By lunchtime the FTSE 100 Index was down 26.2 points at 5163.5, wiping out gains made on Friday.
Concern about the health of many blue chips continued to circle, with fears the rights issue launched by chemicals and paints group ICI could herald a wave of similar cash calls.
Losses on Wall Street on Friday, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average entered the weekend 12.74 points lower at 9907.26, also weighed on the market.
In London, heavyweight telecoms and banking and telecom stocks were hit by the poor sentiment. Mobile phone giant Vodafone was down 2 per cent, off 3 1/4 pence at 151p and mmO2 was a penny lighter at 763/4p.
Cable & Wireless slid 4%, off 111/4p at 2581/4p on fears the group could issue another profits warning.
Tech shares trading lower included chip designer Arm Holdings, down 31/4p at 3091/4p, and computer services group Logica was down 191/2p at 5181/2p.
Of the banks, Barclays was 13p lower at £22.17 sterling, Lloyds TSB was off 61/2p at 7381/2p and Royal Bank of Scotland was down 35p at £17.92. Standard Chartered slipped 11p to 769p, and Northern Rock was off 13p at 6751/2p.
British Airways' shares had a volatile morning, but by lunchtime were up a marginal 11/2p at 214p. The group today reported pre-tax losses of £160 million for the last three months of 2001 after being hit by the slump in world travel post-September 11th.