Leading shares have slipped into negative territory, as profit takers moved in after the market's recent gains.
There was also a sense among traders that investors were pausing for breath as they tried to digest the detail of the US recovery plan. The $1tn proposal to use private and US government money to buy up toxic assets was greeted so enthusiastically yesterday, it was probably inevitable some of the heat would come out of the market.
As for the UK economy, there were further falls in mortgage approvals - down 30.6% in February - but deflation steadfastly failed to appear. Instead retail price inflation was flat rather than falling 0.8% as predicted.
So the FTSE 100 is now down 48.16 points at 3904.65, although the FTSE 250 is still ahead 2.98 points at 6394.19.
Banks eased back from earlier gains, with the exception of Royal Bank of Scotland which is still up 0.8p at 25.8p. Barclays has dipped 3.4p to 118.1p and Lloyds Banking Group is now 1.3p lower at 60.2p.
Elsewhere gases group BG has fallen 14p to £10.88 as Credit Suisse removed the company from its European focus list. The bank said:
"Since 29 January 2008 BG has outperformed the market by 30% and the oil sector by 18% in constant currency.
"Although we continue to prefer BG's superior earnings outlook to the rest of the European sector and keep our relative outperform on the name, yesterday's close of 1086p was above our target price of 1075p and there are more compelling stocks in the European market as a whole."
Among the mid-caps, Northern Foods has jumped 3.5p to 43p ahead of a trading update on Thursday. Analysts at UBS have upgraded from neutral to buy, saying:
"We believe Northern Foods offers a number of attractions including; an 11% yield (which is well covered by cash flow), a relatively strong balance sheet (to fund judicious bolt-on acquisitions), a disciplined management team, a portfolio of branded and private label businesses that we believe is capable of 2-3% underlying growth, and, identified cost reduction opportunities."
