Footsie falls towards 5,000 as telecoms and tech stocks suffer

The FTSE 100 Index is being pushed down towards the key 5,000 mark again, falling 36.6 points to 5036.7 after an hour's trading.

Energis is losing even more of its value in a tough session for telecoms shares.

Shares in the former stock market darling, at one point worth more than €19.6bn, is down 31% or 1¼p to 2¾p - valuing it at under €82m.

The group, which has debts of €1.9bn, saw its share price fall by 70% yesterday after it warned it expected to breach banking covenants.

Sentiment on the London market has been hurt by falls on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones, Nasdaq and S&P all slid as investors took profits. A warning of lower revenues from fibre-optic maker Ciena also hurt the mood in the US.

In London, Vodafone is off 3% or 3½p at 128¼p; mmO2 is down 1¾p at 62p; and Cable & Wireless is off 2¾p at 211¼p.

Among the FTSE-250 stocks, Colt Telecom is down 3½p to 40½p; Kingston Communications is off 2½p at 74p; Telewest Communications has fallen ¾p at 18p; Marconi is off 1¾p at 17¾p; and Spirent is down 3¼p to 128¼p.

Tech shares are also on the slide, with software firm Sage off 8p at 202p; and computer services group Logica down 11½p at 403½p.

FTSE-250-listed bus and train group Go-Ahead is down 55p to 532½p after reporting a slide in half-year operating profits and saying the downturn in aviation services and weakening rail usage would affect profits for the remainder of the financial year. Rival National Express is off 10p at 537½p.