London shares were on the back foot today as investors reacted nervously to losses overnight on Wall Street.
After the first hour, the FTSE 100 Index was off 5.4 points at 5,004.4, with tech and telecom stocks coming under pressure.
New economy shares were suffering after mobile phone giant Motorola depressed US investors last night with its third quarterly loss in a row.
The loss, although matching analysts’ expectations, saw Vodafone slip 1p in early trading in the City to 158p.
Other high-tech firms on the slide included computer services firm Logica, down 34.5p to 701.5p, and chip designer Arm, off 5p to 285p.
Electrocomponents was also suffering, off 6.5p to 416p and the picture was reflected in the FTSE 250 with a host of former blue-chips on the way down.
Energis, down 4p at 66p, Colt Telecom, off 2.5p at 97.5p, and Dimension Data, off 2.5p at 77.5p, were all falling back early on.
Back in the FTSE 100, a mixture of stocks was edging into positive territory, with utilities making headway.
Gas pipeline group Lattice was ahead 5p to 150p while Scottish & Southern Energy rose 9p to 641p.
There was little corporate news for investors to feed on, with most activity centring on smaller stocks.
Advertising and public relations firm Incepta fell 5%, or 1.5p, to 26.5p, after warning its second-half would be affected by the terror attacks on the US.
And former stock market darling Baltimore Technologies climbed 2p to 16p after appointing a new chief executive.
EGi News 10/10/01
