Going into the last few minutes trading, UK markets have staged something of a recovery.

Early morning sentiment was helped by better-than-expected numbers from supermarket giant Tesco. This announcement has kept the company near the top of the FTSE 100 leaderboard for most of the day, with gains of around 10%. But as with other shares at present, it needs to be viewed in the context of the bigger picture. Today's rise has lifted Tesco off four-year lows, but with positive market sentiment proving to be just a passing fad all too frequently at the moment, traders seemed reluctant to believe that today's rise could signal the start of a more meaningful recovery.

Turning back to the broader market, it is starting to look as if Monday's session has triggered a shift in sentiment. The last ten days or so had seen weakness bringing the buyers out looking for bargains, but steep dives by the major indices on Monday seems to have once again injected a note of caution into any rallies.  With the interest-rate decision due on Thursday, all of this could well mean that traders are even more reluctant than usual to hold positions for anything but the shortest period at the moment.

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