There was precious little relief for a London stock market that came under heavy fire for the fourth consecutive trading session yesterday, with dealers taking evasive action after a hefty overnight setback on Wall Street.

At the close yesterday the FTSE 100 was down a further 62.2 at 6,329.8. It has now fallen 245.2 or 3.7 per cent over the past four sessions and almost 300 points or 4.4 per cent from its closing high of 6,620.6, recorded on July 6th.

The weakness in the leaders rippled across the rest of the equity market, with the FTSE 250 index finishing 39 down at 6,033.5, while the FTSE SmallCap was similarly depressed 8.3 down at 2,735.4.

Turnover reached 1.27 billion shares and was again boosted by programme trade activity, the sizeable business in the oil majors, as well as by Vodafone AirTouch. Non-FTSE 100 stocks accounted for 46 per cent of the total.