The market's attention has moved from Ireland back to China for the moment.
Earlier in the week there were fears that China would raise its interest rates to help dampen down demand and deal with rising inflation. Well, the country hasn't done that (yet) but it has raised the minimum reserve requirement for its banks, which is a policy tightening move, and has put more pressure on the markets.
The FTSE 100 is now down 50.07 points at 5718.64, with mining groups and banks remaining the dominant feature.
Kathleen Brooks at Gain Capital said
China has hiked the reserve requirement ratio again by 50 basis points to take effect 29 November. Hong Kong already announced new policies to try and curb a property bubble. It raised stamp duty for short-term transactions and lowered the loan-to-value ratio of mortgages to 50 per cent for properties valued above HK$12m. These measures from Asia are weighing on risky assets, especially commodities and the commodity currencies.
