London took its cue from a sell off in Asia and one on Wall Street last night, with the FTSE 100 opening down some 50 points and remaining down 54 points by 10.30am at 5960.8.

The market was also spooked by figures from the Halifax which showed house prices falling in March at their fastest levels for 15 years.

This made housebuilder Persimmon one of the blue chips' worst performers down 3.75 per cent at 679.5p while mortgage lender HBOS, Halifax's parent, fell by the same amount to 539p.

Mid cap housebuilders Bellway, Barratt Developments and Taylor Wimpey also crumbled, all down by more than 5 per cent. Barclays was off just over 3 per cent at 470.5p.

Royal Bank of Scotland lost 3 per cent to 365.75p after Cazenove reiterated its underperform advice, saying that even if it disposed of Direct Line, its Bank of China stake and Angel Trains, its capital levels would still be only modest.

The few stocks in the black were traditional safe-haven players such as Unilever, up 29p at £17.26 and BT, up 2p at 231.75p, perhaps also helped by the departure of Ben Verwaayen to be replaced by his well-regarded number two Ian Livingstone.

Wellstream, the maker of flexible pipeline hoses, was one of the worst mid cap performers, down 7 per cent at £12.24 after original private equity backer Candover announced the sale of its entire 13.8 per cent stake.

Oil services group Expro International, which at the start of March revealed it had received an approach gained 3 per cent to £12.31, since it is rumoured as a bid target for Candover.

Miners succumbed to profit taking helped down by disappointing numbers from US aluminium producer Alcoa. Its first-quarter earnings dropped 54 per cent year-on-year, hit by higher costs and a weaker US dollar.

ENRC, the Kazakhstan miner which reports tomorrow, fell 3 per cent to £10.66 as it lost yesterday's gains.

Britvic was up 4.6 per cent to 327.75p after Merrill Lynch initiated coverage of the drinks manufacturer with a ’buy’ recommendation.

GW Pharmaceuticals dived 21 per cent to 56.5p after it admitted final stage trials of its Sativex pain killer for multiple sclerosis sufferers based on cannabis had failed due to there being no significant difference in pain relief with a placebo.

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