Market hovers near opening mark

The London market is hovering just under its opening mark as it waits to see whether Wall Street's rally continues.

By lunchtime the FTSE 100 Index had slipped 10 points at 5328 as profit taking on yesterday's strong gains tipped it into the red.

The Dow Jones closed more than 100 points up overnight, while the tech laden Nasdaq also ended the session in positive territory.

In London tech stocks were on the back foot, with chip designer Arm Holdings losing 24½p or 418¾p to head the Footsie fallers board.

Computer services firm Logica shed 24p at 941p, while Sage lost 6¼p at 263¾p.

The slimmed-down BT Group tumbled 4%, or 10¾p to 279¼p, while its former mobile phone arm mmO2 slipped 1¼p at 82¾p. Vodafone fell 2% or 3½p to 185½p.

Also losing ground were media stocks, which were on the back foot after recent gains.

Electricity group National Grid also lost out after being pushed into the red by a £290m write down on its Latin American telecoms business.

Shares in the group, which published interim figures today, fell 20p at 482p.

Also suffering was supermarket Tesco, which has lost its European court battle with Levi over the right to sell cut-price designer goods in the UK. It was off a penny to 240¾p.