THE London market had all the ingredients of a dime novel yesterday: drink, drugs, fighting and a fall from a great height. With that heady combination, it was hardly surprising that the FTSE 100 index was unable to maintain the momentum seen earlier in the week. The blue chip index closed at 4,336.8, down 19.3 on the day but only 3.2 on the week.
Drink was taken on Thursday night when almost 900 brokers and guests attended the annual analysts' dinner at the Grosvenor House hotel. The dinner marked the end of one of the most profitable years for financial markets.
And while no-one was suggesting any excess, the level of equity business carried out during the first couple of hours of trading yesterday was noticeably lower than usual.
Then, at mid-morning, came the fighting - a battle royal between two leading British houses ahead of the expiry of FTSE 100 index options.
As a result, Footsie virtually ignored the impact of Thursday's 92-point fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. With expiry out of the way, the Footsie felt back sharply until by lunchtime it was down by more than 40 points.
The drugs sector gave the market a hangover cure in the form of a tonic from Zeneca. Zeneca has often been relied upon to provide light relief on slow Fridays when rumours unaccountably but regularly spring up that Roche of Switzerland is poised to make a bid. Yesterday, the twist was that the bid would come from Glaxo Wellcome.
