FTSE on the slide

Cautious trading ahead of key US jobs data left the FTSE 100 Index in the red today as investors moved to lock-in recent gains.

The Footsie slipped 37 points to 5982.5 following the 24 point slide seen yesterday as nerves took hold after a festive shares rally that took the top tier to fresh two-and-a-half-year highs.

US markets also eased back overnight, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average recording its first fall of 2011.

The US jobs figures - a key indicator of the health of America's economy - have been fuelling uncertainty, despite expectations for a sharp rise in the number of jobs created and for the unemployment rate to hold steady.

Among London stocks trading lower, miners retreated with silver specialist Fresnillo down 53p to 1525p and African Barrick Gold off 12.5p to 569p.

Arm Holdings, which was yesterday's big riser after Microsoft said it would run the latest version of its Windows software on Arm's microchips, gave back some of the gains to stand 23.2p lower at 458.8p, a drop of 5%.

One of the bright spots of the session came from the retail sector after sportswear chain JD Sports Fashion maintained its recent run of forecast-beating updates.

Despite the disruption caused by the snow in December, JD said like-for-like sales at its UK stores, which include 350 JD Sports and Size? outlets, were up 2.5% in the last five weeks of 2010. It also revealed that profits for the year to January 28 will exceed City expectations of £75.4m (€89.8m).

JD shares added another 3% or 26p to 891.5p, while rival Sports Direct International gained 3.8p to 168.7p.

It was a better day for many high street players, with Next and fashion group Burberry ahead in the top flight by 27p to 2101p and 8p to 1129p respectively.

B&B owner Kingfisher was up 1.7p to 262.2p after suffering earlier this week following snow-hit sales reports from a swathe of retailers.

In the FTSE 250, tour operator Thomas Cook dropped 1.1p to 199.3p after news the planned merger of its high street business with The Co-operative had been referred to the Office of Fair Trading.

But budget airline easyJet was on the rise, ahead 9.1p to 464.1p, as the market reacted well to December traffic figures seen as robust given the snow disruption.

The carrier said it sold 7.6% more seats in December than the same time last year.