Going into the final few minutes of trading, the UK stock market is ending the day in the red.
Monday was always going to be somewhat uneventful, with US markets closed for a national holiday. The FTSE has traded in a relatively tight range but is ending the day trading on its lows. The week has not got off to a good start, with the CBI saying it expects the UK slowdown this year to be much worse than expected – with a contraction in GDP of 3.3%. Banking was under the cosh again, following the fallout from Friday’s profit warning for Lloyds due to a bigger than expected loss from HBOS.
Despite all this, it seems fair to say the stock market is holding up well in the face of this continuing onslaught of negative news. Only a few months ago, this worsening outlook for the wider economy and surprises being pulled out of the hat by banks would have been all the excuse investors needed to head for the exits in droves. The market seems to be pretty resilient against the ongoing storm for now and - while a half decent recovery for shares still looks some way away - it does suggest that we could be spared the regular white knuckle rides down to the basement that we got used to towards the end of 2008.
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