The London market’s festive rally came to an abrupt halt today amid lower oil prices and fresh uncertainty over Greece’s future in the euro.
With the FTSE 100 Index 57.6 points lower at 6575.9, the top flight is on course to complete its first negative session since December 15.
Commodity firms dominated the fallers board after the price of Brent crude oil dived to a five-and-a-half year low of near to 57 US dollars a barrel.
BG Group was 22.3p lower at 867.4p, Royal Dutch Shell fell 48.75p to 2235.75p and BP dropped 7.4p to 410.6p.
The latest fall in the price of oil was accompanied by fears over the eurozone outlook after Greece was forced to announce early national elections due to the failure of the country’s politicians to elect a new president.
However, the pound failed to exploit the eurozone worries and was flat against the single currency at 1.27 and unchanged versus the US dollar at 1.55.