It was the telecoms sector, so often the villain of the stock market piece in recent months, that prevented a wholesale retreat by the FTSE 100 index yesterday.
Strip out those stocks, plus a handful of others, and the London market's benchmark index would have looked in a sorry state indeed, especially as some of the other heavyweight sectors of the market, especially the oils, banks and insurances, took another hammering.
As it was, the FTSE 100 index saw a hard-won mid-morning gain of 29 points wiped out over the lunchtime period and replaced by a sharp fall of 71.5 before it stabilised at the close to finish 34.5 off at 6,382.5.
The FTSE 250 dipped to settle 10.4 down at 6,608.0 and the Techmark 100, which was up over 30 points during the morning, came rattling down to close 6.81 down at 3,428.19. The FTSE SmallCap was the only index to remain in positive territory during a difficult trading day, closing 1.7 firmer at 3,369.6.
The news from New York cast a dark shadow over proceedings in London; Mr Tony Jackson, UK equity market strategist at Charterhouse Securities, said: "There is still the risk of profit warnings crossing the Atlantic.
The latest unconvincing performance from the London market came despite some reasonably market-friendly economic news.
That included the Confederation of British Industry's June Survey of Distributive Trades, a decline in the rate of growth in the PMI survey of the services sector and a 0.4 per cent decline in UK house prices, measured by the Halifax survey.
All that news was seen by the market as adding to the view that the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, which began its regular two-day meeting yesterday, is extremely unlikely to nudge interest rates higher. The mpc's decision will be announced at noon today.
