It was another unconvincing performance from a tired and weary equity market yesterday, with dealers and investors increasingly distracted by the counter-attractions of the racing at Royal Ascot and the cricket at the Oval.
At the finish of what was described as a "tedious" trading session, the FTSE 100 suddenly fell away to close 58.2 lower at 5,641.4, its lowest of the day, as a mid-session rally petered out and a late sell-off produced a 20-point slide in the after-market auction.
The FTSE 250 ended 0.1 off at 6,358.8 and the SmallCap down 9.7 at 3,020.7, but the Techmark 100 managed a 6.25 rally at 1,801.53, halting a sequence of five consecutive declines.
There was some inspiration for London prior to the opening, with Wall Street putting up a fighting performance overnight as the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 50 points and the Nasdaq Composite regained the 2,000 level, adding 38 points.
Those were impressive showings in the face of the latest blast of profits warnings, which were only partly offset by the encouraging comments about stabilising advertising revenues made by AOL's chief executive on Wednesday.
Sadly, the good news from Wall Street was countered by some bad news from continental Europe where BASF, the German chemicals and drugs group, issued a profits warning regarding its second-quarter results and announced a number of factory closures.
As well as hitting the BASF stock price, the news also affected sentiment in ICI, whose shares were among the worst casualties in the FTSE 100 list.
