FTSE Edges Down After Rate cut

Banks all fell with Alliance & Leicester, Barclays, HBOS, Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered all falling 1.5-5.8 per cent.

Miners also fell with BHP Billiton falling 2.6 per cent after denying all knowledge of a possible Chinese stake being bought in the company. Fellow miners Anglo American, Lonmin, Vedanta Reosources and Xstrata also fell between 0.3-2.2 per cent. The only miner to do well was Eurasian Natural Resources who rose 6.7 per cent.

Property companies British Land, Hammerson, Liberty International and Segro all dropped 2.3-4 per cent each.

Other losers of the day were Currys owner DSG International whose shares fell 8.5 per cent after issuing its second profit warning in the last three months.

British Energy did well however, rising 5.4 per cent after reports of a possible 11 billion bid by German utility company RWE.

Enodis, supplier of fryers to McDonalds restaurants, saw its shares shoot up 51.8 per cent to 227.016 pence per share, following confirmation that US company Manitowoc had approached the company with an offer worth 260 pence per share.