London STOCKS

A buoyant session for blue- chip f inancial stocks failed to boost the London market amid renewed fears over the global economy and subdued trading onWall Street.

The FTSE 100 Index gave back most of Thursday’s gains, down 36.4 points at 5,793.3, despite a sector-wide broker upgrade for UK bank stocks and betterthan-expected thirdquarter results from JP Morgan Chase.

The US bank said profits rose by a third to $5.7 billion thanks to a rebound in mortgage refinancing.

Encouraging consumer confidence figures out in America initially helped the Dow Jones Industrial Average, but it soon slipped back to stand 15 points lower as the London market closed after figures from Wells Fargo bank proved a disappointment.

Sentiment in London had also been hit by lacklustre trading overnight inAsia.

Financial services provider Hargreaves Lansdown was the biggest Footsie riser after a first-quarter trading update showed record revenues, customer numbers and assets under administration, despite a quiet summer for the investment management industry.

Global e c o n o my worries weighed on heavily-weighted miners, with Kazakhmys down 30.5p to 715.5p and Evraz off 13.3p to 234.3p.

The engineering sector was hit by another profit warning, this time from industrial materials firm Morgan Crucible, coming just days after Cookson’s alert.