Leading shares have lost almost all of Tuesday's gains, as hopes of serious moves towards resolving the eurozone crisis faded and UK retail sales came in sharply lower than expected.
The FTSE 100 jumped sharply ahead of today's EU summit as investors bet on a possible agreement to promote growth and even perhaps agree to issue eurobonds. But the resistance to the idea by Germany seems unlikely to allow that to happen.
Meanwhile UK retail sales fell at their fastest for more than two years in April, down 2.3% compared to a forecast fall of 0.8%, as the wet weather dampened enthusiasm for shopping.
So the leading index is now down 85 points at 5318.28. Markets were under pressure from the start, following some confusion over remarks by former Greek prime minister Lucas Papademos, who initially seemed to suggest countries were making continency plans for a possible Greek exit from the euro. Later he appeared to say no such plans were underway. The last thing markets like is uncertainty, so this has not gone down well.
Mining companies, among Tuesday's gainers as China indicated it would bring forward infrastructure spending, are now almost inevitably the biggest fallers. Kazakhmys is down 37p at 700.5p and Vedanta Resources has lost 50p to 997p.
But leading the way lower is Man, down 4.55p at 73.1p. On Tuesday a couple of downbeat broker notes unsettled the shares, which have been poor performers on worries about its growth outlook and concerns about fund outflows. Now Moody's has joined in, saying it was continuing its rating review of the business and would include this week's news of Man's proposed acqusition of FRM Holdings.
