City surge grinds to a halt as investors gather profits

THE London market's recent surge ground to a halt yesterday as investors gathered profits at the end of a three-day upward run.

The FTSE 100 Index fell 21.8 points to 4180.9 but managed to avoid more panic selling after US markets opened lower in the afternoon.

However, analysts continued to warn that conditions remained fragile, with shareholders on both sides of the Atlantic clearly keen to take profits.

That meant the Footsie was unable to hold on to an initial 70 point gain built on the back of a 450 point rise for the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the previous night’s session.

Telecoms and financial stocks slipped, with BT falling almost 2%, or 3p to 198p, and mmO2 easing 3%, or 1p to 45p.

Vodafone was faring slightly better ahead of its AGM statement today, up a penny at 98p.

Among the Big Four banks, Barclays was down 16p at 471p, Royal Bank of Scotland was off 45p at £16.15, Lloyds TSB was 12p lower at 636p and HSBC was down 6p at 722p.

The biggest Footsie risers were P&O Princess up 22p at 428p, Scottish & Southern Energy ahead 31p at 660p, Capita Group up 12p at 283p, GUS ahead 19p at 490p.

The biggest Footsie fallers were Reuters down 20p at 272p, AMVESCAP off 34p at 475p, Centrica down 10p at 164p and Aviva off 24p at 415p.