Worries about the weakening housing market resurfaced today and knocked back the shares of Britain's leading builders.
On an edgy day all round, Taylor Wimpey fell 14.2p to 179.8p ahead of a trading statement next week. Persimmon, which is due to update the market on Wednesday, fell 40p to 685p. There is a growing feeling that the builders will get no help on Thursday when the Bank of England makes its latest interest rate decision - the betting is for no change.
Neither Marks & Spencer nor J Sainsbury made much of a recovery from their earlier falls. Both will update investors about the crucial Christmas trading period this week, and unsubstantiated reports over the weekend suggested both may disappoint. Whatever the truth of this, the market was siding with the pessimists. Marks fell 19.5p to 498.5p while Sainsbury slid 14.5p to 391p.
Overall the FTSE 100 ended 12.8 points lower at 6335.7, but that does not tell the whole story. After early buoyancy, the UK market suffered another downturn when Wall Street fell sharply. The Dow was undermined, partly by economic worries after Friday's US jobless figures, and partly by the news of increased tensions between Iran and the US after American navy ships were allegedly harassed by Iranian speedboats. Even a slight recovery on the Dow failed to pull the FTSE back into positive territory.
With all the nervousness around, investors turned their attention to defensive stocks, from utilities like British Energy - 6% better after a positive note from Cazenove - and pharmaceuticals companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, up 3.5% to £13.21.
