A rush of UK corporate stories was masked yesterday by a broad picture that had less colour than a wet weekend in Wednesbury.
There were swingeing downgrades, incestuous upgrades, strong figures, regulatory impacts, mergers shocks and bids.
Nevertheless the Footsie was essentially flat. It traded within a narrow range and only blipped up in the last few minutes as the afterhours stabilisation auction took place. The index closed 9.4 higher at 6,390.7. However, with Vodafone AirTouch stripped out, it was only up two points.
The blue-chip index dealt effortlessly with a savage downgrade of BSKyB by the company's house broker just ahead of the media group's full-year figures.
It sailed through a positive review of HSBC by the bank's own broker. It gave short shrift to strong figures from Reuters, positive results from SmithKline Beecham and news of a delay to the long-awaited merger between SmithKline and Glaxo Wellcome.
Footsie was sanguine about the news that orphan estates, the locked fortunes held by insurance companies, could be released.
And the market was unmoved by the announcement of a £48 million sterling bid for Wolstenholme Rink and strong speculation about a £430 million offer for McKechnie, the engineering and aerospace group, by Cinven.
The UK market continued to be caught in the eye of a chart-related storm that has been building for many months and apparently significant data has been unable to shift it.
Yesterday there were strong corporate figures from US leaders such as Exxon and AT&T but these were offset by worryingly high US home sales and a strong consumer confidence report.
Strategists said the calm could continue today despite another welter of figures and the latest quarterly trends survey from the Confederation of British Industry.
There are hopes of a breakthrough later in the week as the US employment cost figures and second-quarter GDP figures provide pointers to the next move in rates when the Federal Open Market Committee meets in a month's time.
However, Credit Suisse First Boston summed up the general nervousness in its latest strategy review published yesterday.
"While some of the concerns that have motivated our defensive stance in the spring have now eased many still linger.
"The probability of a soft landing has increased but even this still carries meaningful risks. The outlook has improved but not enough to encourage us to abandon overweight calls on the defensive sectors."
