Footsie slides ever nearer to 5,000 mark

London shares are continuing to slide further towards the crucial 5,000 mark.

After an hour's trading the FTSE-100 Index is down 37.9 points at 5030.6 - well below Friday's 34-month low.

Shares have been battered by dives on Wall Street, where dismal US employment figures led the Dow Jones to end Friday down 235 points.

Among the heaviest fallers is Scottish Power. Its share price has slid 13% or 60p to 240p after it warned that earnings would be hit by the slump in US electricity prices.

Rival International Power was also down, off 11p at 270p, while Lattice was 3½p lower at 150p.

Fallers in the telecom and tech sector include Colt Telecom, which has shed 13p to go down to 159p, and Energis, down 2¼p at 60¼p. Chip designer Arm is off 7p at 248p and IT services group Logica is down 17p at 700p.

But battered Marconi has managed to buck the trend, rising 2p to 31½p, after a speculation that it is in talks with banks about its debt.

HBOS, the newly-merged Halifax and Bank of Scotland, has started its first day as a combined business with shares marginally ahead, up 2½p at 834p.

Analysts believe HBoS shares will gradually rise to 900p in the near term, providing a welcome start for more than 3 million private investors.