Britain's FTSE 100 index retreated at midsession today with heavyweight banking and drug shares under pressure amid persisting worries about earnings and the economic outlook.
WPP Group fell 6.1 per cent as it painted a gloomy outlook for the advertising industry, saying organic revenues tumbled more than eight per cent in the first five months of the year and it did not expect a full recovery until 2004.
That weighed on the media sector generally, with Pearson falling 3.7 per cent.
The blue-chip index was down 53.4 points or 1.16 per cent at 4,551.9 by 1200 GMT, sliding back towards the nine-month low of 4,506.3 which the FTSE touched on Friday. So far this year, the index has fallen 13 per cent.
Mobile phone heavyweight Vodafone shed 2.5 per cent to 87-3/4 pence. Mobile phone operator mmO2 fell 2.7 per cent after Goldman Sachs cut its rating on the stock to "market perform" from "market outperform".
Among drugs shares, GlaxoSmithKline fell 2.1 per cent and AstraZeneca shed 1.5 per cent.
Shares in British American Tobacco shed 2.5 per cent to 755-1/2p. A New Zealand woman dying of lung cancer is suing BAT for NZ$330,000, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the South Pacific country, her lawyer said.
US index futures dropped, pointing to a lower opening on Wall Street. FTSE 100 losers outnumbered gainers by four to one. Market volume was low at 860 million shares.