London's six day rally, which has seen the FTSE 100 put on 10%, has spluttered to a halt in morning trading as banks and utility stocks succumb to profit taking.
The FTSE 100 has eased 58.02 points to 4580.90, with Scottish & Southern Energy the morning's biggest faller among the blue chips, down 94p at 1169p, closely followed by Severn Trent, down 67p at 1155p.
The utility sector has been seen as a safe haven over the past few turbulent months but its attractions have been rather overplayed according to some analysts and the rally had run away with itself.
Profit-takers have also got hold of Standard Chartered, down 49p at 950p. The bank has had a good run over the past two days. Earlier in the week Cazenove chose Standard Chartered as its top international pick among the UK banks with an outperform rating - above rival HSBC, down 6.25p at 651p, which got an underperform rating.
Among the other banks, Royal Bank of Scotland is one of the morning session's most traded stocks - down 1.6p at 49.4p - while Lloyds TSB has lost 0.2p to 118.8p.
There is still strong support for 3i with the shares adding 23.5p - or 7% - in early trading after they surged 60p yesterday. Traders reckon the market got too pessimistic about the prospects for the investment group's portfolio of companies and the gap between the stock price and net asset value became too large, hence the rally.
This morning's trading update and Stuart Rose's swift move to close underperforming stores, has helped Marks & Spencer add 13.5p to 252.25p. Greggs is down 19p at 3302p after the bakery chain announced plans to expand its portfolio after reporting a 5.3% rise in underlying sales in the four weeks to 3 January.
Positive noises from the analyst team at Investec has helped some telecoms stocks with Cable & Wireless up 1.2p at 165.2p and Colt Telecom up 11.5p to 92.5p.
Finally, Cattles has lost 4.25p to 25.25p after the doorstep lender announced plans to axe 1,000 jobs and cut the amount of new business it handles by 75%.
