THE London market held its nerve today after comments from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke that the economic outlook remained "unusually uncertain" knocked confidence on Wall Street and in Asia.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed more than 1% lower and triggered losses for the Nikkei and Hang Seng before the markets recovered late on.
A more resilient performance was seen in London, with the FTSE 100 Index just 5.9 points lower at 5208.7.
Outsourcing group Capita set the pace after it reported a 15% rise in half-year profits and said it expected to benefit from Government spending cuts as public sector clients are forced to offload work to the private sector. Shares jumped 23p to 733p, a rise of 3%.
On the fallers board, shares in software firm Autonomy were 7% lower after its first-half figures failed to please the market. Analysts said the company’s margins were short of hopes, causing shares to drop 140p to 1673p.
There was also a drop for DIY chain Kingfisher after a deterioration in the sales trend at its B&Q business in the UK. It blamed the downturn on the reduced appetite of shoppers for "big ticket" items, although fewer promotions meant an improvement in its margins position. Shares fell 4.5p to 219p.
