Leading shares are edging lower after failing to hit a new peak at the last gasp on Tuesday.
A drop in precious metal miners as the market closed has continued in the latest trading session. The companies came under pressure as gold dropped sharply along with a rising dollar, and although the metal has regained some ground, miners are among the main fallers in the index.
Fresnillo has fallen 46p to £16.78 while Randgold Resources is down 165p to £71.65.
Overall the FTSE 100 has dipped 18.05 points to 7056.29, despite the pound slipping to a new 31 year low against the dollar and a better than expected UK services survey for September.
To add to investors’ existing concerns - a hard Brexit leaving the UK outside the single market, a potential rise in US interest rates, worries about bank balance sheets - came talk that the European Central Bank may start tapering its bond buying programme. Rebecca O’Keeffe, head of investment at stockbroker Interactive Investor, said:
European equity markets are on the back foot as concerns grow that central banks are going to pare back accommodative policy - with the ECB potentially tapering bond purchases and previously dovish Fed members ramping up expectations of an interest rate rise this year. Both equity and bond market valuations have been founded on monetary support from global central banks and have arguably become hooked on quantitative easing and low interest rates. The possibility of central banks returning to a more normal regime could see taper tantrums resume, volatility spike and investors flee.
But positive results from Tesco have sent the supermarket sector higher. Tesco itself is up 17.5p to 206.2p closely followed by Morrisons, 2.8p better at 223.4p, and Sainsbury, 3p higher at 253.2p.
Among the mid-caps insurer Hastings has dropped 8.7p to 219.8p after a series of investors including Neil Utley, who led an original management buyout of the business, and non-executive director Richard Brewster sold nearly £100m worth of shares at 216p each.
