A late flurry of selling pressure, mostly triggered by straightforward profit-taking, prompted a sharp about-turn in London's blue-chip stocks yesterday, extending the sequence of losing performances to a fourth consecutive session.

Dealers said the reversal in the leaders came in the wake of concerns about the possibility of further conflict in Iraq, and continuing worries that global markets had run ahead of themselves in the past couple of weeks.

They also said that turnover in the market was significantly lower than in recent sessions, partly because Monday is a traditionally low volume day, but also because of the forthcoming Thanksgiving Day holiday period in the US, where markets will be closed on Thursday.

The FTSE 100 index finished a comparatively subdued session 40.3 lower at 6,442.0 - pushing its decline over the past four trading days to 141.0, or 2.1 per cent.

Turnover in equities was 1.5 billion shares, the lowest daily total for two weeks.