Those still holding out hope that London’s top index can push to all-time highs soon were dealt another blow on Friday as the FTSE 100 closed the week with a fairly steep drop.
The FTSE 100 fell 64.73 points, or 0.81%, to end the day at 7,911.16.
Retailers especially seemed to lead the downwards push, with Ocado, JD Sports, B&Q owner Kingfisher, Sainsbury’s and Primark owner AB Foods all dropping towards the bottom of the index.
Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at online trading platform IG, said that the fall in the FTSE and other European markets came largely in response to drops in New York on Thursday evening.
Frankfurt’s Dax index fell 1.30%, while the Cac 40 in Paris had closed down 1.11%.
Wall Street itself was playing catch up with the S&P 500 up 1.08% and the Dow Jones up 0.79% shortly after European markets closed.
“Yesterday’s flight to the safety of the dollar has been replaced with buying of that other safe haven, US stocks,” Mr Beauchamp said.
“Once more the US economy has demonstrated its overall strength, and while that continues to make a rate cut less likely, it does at least mean that Americans will keep spending.”
He added: “European markets have mostly played catch-up to the US drop yesterday, but have already seen some buying at the lows.
“After yesterday’s yield driven gains in London, today has seen the reverse, though the FTSE 100 still looks in a good place to make further gains thanks to a rosier earnings outlook.”
On currency markets the pound had fallen 0.08% against the dollar at 1.2633 and was 0.14% lower compared to the euro at 1.1649.
In company news, Shell said that its gas division has seen a reduction in trading after a strong end to 2023.
Shell said that the division between January and March was “strong” but still “significantly lower” than the last three months of 2023.
Shares in the company seemed to shrug off the news, rising 0.58%.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Flutter Entertainment, up 180p to 15,895p, BAE Systems, up 13p to 1,326p, Smith & Nephew, up 9p to 974.8p, Admiral Group, up 23p to 2,660p, and Shell, up 16p to 2,780p.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were Ocado, down 37.5p to 379.7p, St James’s Place, down 19.2p to 429.4p, JD Sports, down 5.3p to 126.25p, National Grid, down 39p to 1,033p, and DCC, down 185p to 5,465p.