Shares in London failed to make progress once again as concerns about the prospects for interest rates on both sides of the Atlantic, continued to depress sentiment. Corporate news was for once not particularly helpful with the main events being a profits warning from Somerfield and some poorly received figures from Blue Circle, the building materials group.

While the London stock market made a strong start that saw the FTSE 100 index up 41.3 to 6,232.3, the rally quickly petered out. Wall Street duly opened lower when cash trading started in New York, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average quickly falling 40 points. The Dow rebounded, allowing Footsie to recover for a while, but then slipped again, prompting the London blue chip index to close 22 lower at 6,169.0.

Small and medium-sized stocks also finished lower, with the FTSE 250 index dropping 46.1 to 6,037.8 and the SmallCap index down 7.1 at 2,853.5. Gilts provided little support for the equity market, with the benchmark 10-year issue dropping a quarter of a point, however, sterling's trade-weighted index slipped from 105.1 to 104.6.

Turnover at the 6 p.m. count was 1.1 billion shares, strong for a Monday, although boosted by around 150 million of trades in penny stocks Minmet, Dana Petroleum and Emerald.