Footsie bouncing back after early slide

The London market seems to be overcoming a poor start to trading as the City digests a raft of corporate announcements.

The Footsie index of 100 leading stocks is still down by 16.3 points at the mid-morning stage at 5780.6, but it has recovered from its earlier low of 5733.8.

This had been prompted by a disappointing session in the US, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.5% and the Nasdaq Composite tumbled more than 4% on fears over the state of the tech sector.

Those making gains in London include Rentokil Initial, which leads the Footsie risers board after issuing an upbeat trading statement. Its share price has surged by 12% or 23p to 213½p.

Engineering group Invensys is up 5p at 139p after saying it will cut a further 1,700 jobs worldwide due to the downturn in the global economy. Its fortunes have been lifted by comments that it's still committed to plans to spin off its power systems business.

Among others reporting results, Boots is up 3p at 580p despite seeing flat sales growth.

Technology and telecoms stocks are also making a tentative surge after earlier losses. Chip designer ARM Holdings is up 9¼p at 341p; Colt Telecom is 19p ahead at 720p; and IT services group CMG is up 3p at 416½p.

But computer games group Eidos is down 3½p at 275½p after announcing a significant drop in turnover for the year to March 31.

Other big fallers include telecoms equipment maker Marconi, down 9½p at 346½p following press speculation that it will issue a profits warning; computer services group Dimension Data, down 7p at 334p; and software group Sage, slipping 5¼p at 280¼p.