After two days of falls, with the FTSE 100 recording its biggest one day decline since March on Tuesday, investors are still in a cautious mood.
With a quieter news day so far - no profit warnings a la Tesco or Tate and Lyle or US tax actions knocking healthcare shares - the leading index has dipped 10.31 points to 6665.77. But with airstrikes on Syria and continuing worries about growth in the eurozone and China, there is little support for the market at the moment.
There are some bright spots. Fresnillo is leading the risers, up 17.5p to 776.5p after UBS added the Mexican precious metals miner to its most preferred European mining list.
Still in the sector but down in the FTSE 250, Kazakhmys has climbed 9.6p to 274.8p after it said it had awarded a contract for the construction of the sulphide concentrator at its copper growth project at Aktogay, which is expected to cost $2.3bn.
Meanwhile Vodafone is up 2.95p to 201.60p after a report that the mobile operator and its rivals were in talks with the government to share access to masts to improve rural reception, a cheaper option than a national roaming regime being imposed.
Among the fallers, Centrica is down 6.1p at 308.3p and Old Mutual is 3.1p lower at 185.4p after both companies saw their shares go ex-dividend.
Rightmove has lost 123p to £22.02 as Citigroup moved its recommendation to sell with a target price of £21.75.
Lower down the market Real Good Food is steady at 31p despite the Competition and Markets Authority deciding not to proceed with a full investigation into its pricing dispute with British Sugar.
Real Good Food said the CMA believed the case had strategic value but a full investigation would take up significant resources and take at least two years, and it currently has nine live competition enforcement cases. Real Good Food said:
The group suspects that the recent dramatic reduction in sugar prices may have contributed to the CMA believing that the market has sufficient competition. That may be so at present, when supply of sugar within the EU is plentiful, but the group remains concerned that when stocks tighten, which the group believes they inevitably will, competition will prove less than sufficient.
[Our subsidiary] Napier Brown has an outstanding offer to take the complaint back to the European Competition Authorities in Brussels and intends to open discussions with them shortly.
At least the decision gives the business some clarity. Contingency plans for such an outcome were already in place and as such this decision does not affect current trading.
British Sugar owner Associated British Foods is currently 63p lower at £25.56.
