As an omen, it was not particularly encouraging. Having lost ground in each of the first three quarters of the year, the FTSE 100 index looked set to make a winning start to October.
But then came the end-of-the-session auction when all the existing bids and offers are squared away. Before the auction Footsie was 29 points ahead. By the time all the numbers were crunched, the index was back in the red, falling 9.7 to 6,284.5.
The fall may have been small but it is the drip, drip nature of stock market losses that tend to wear down the patience of investors. In contrast, big one-day declines are often seen as buying opportunities.
The day's economic and corporate news contained nothing that was likely to startle the horses. For once, Wall Street provided no profit warnings and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was modestly higher by the London close.
The UK purchasing managers' index for September showed a small fall but indicated that manufacturing activity was still growing slowly in September despite the fuel crisis. The figure was not seen as making a rate increase by the Bank of England any more likely.
Oil rebounded on the day but the main effect was to give a modest lift to the prices of market heavyweights BP and Shell.
While Footsie lost ground, the other leading indices were mixed. The Techmark 100 index held up well in spite of the Nasdaq's big losses on Friday and advanced 47.15 to 3,782.0. The FTSE 250 gained 20.7 to 6,697.6. But the SmallCap index, which unlike the FTSE 100, is well ahead on the year so far, fell 9.9 to 3,406.5.
Turnover was 1.53 billion shares by the 6 p.m. count, reflecting the lack of big news and the normally sluggish Monday action.
