By Sara Sjolin and Carla Mozee, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- The U.K.'s FTSE 100 index fell on
Monday, extending losses into a fifth straight week.
The benchmark index dropped 0.7% to 6,267.07 after closing lower
for a fourth straight week on Friday amid a wider rout in European
markets. European stocks were also on the decline on Monday.
"Where markets go now is anyone's call, but it does seem as if
the underlying volatility that had been elusive for some months is
now back with us," said Tony Cross, market analyst at Trustnet
Direct, in a note.
Telecoms and the consumer services group were the only two of 10
sectors that registered gains. Travel stocks gained after a rough
ride in recent sessions. Shares of InterContinental Hotel Group
gained 4.3%, TUI Travel PLC rose 3% and British Airways parent
International Consolidates Airlines picked up 3.1%.
But shares of Petrofac Ltd. lost 2.8%. The oil-field-services
provider leapt 7.3% on Friday saying it is on track to meet its
full-year profit expectations.
Shares of Shire PLC fell 0.8% after the drug maker said its
chief financial officer James Bowling is stepping down to join
Severn Trent PLC .
In other developments, the automated system used to shift
billions of pounds a day between banks was hit by a technical
problem, resulting in the delay of U.K. purchases of houses and
other big transactions. The glitch in the Real Time Gross
Settlement Payment System was related to routine maintenance work.
The problem has been resolved, said the Bank of England on Monday,
adding that it would continue working through 8 p.m. London time to
ensure settlement of transactions.
The central bank said earlier the "most important payments" were
being made manually, and all payments made Monday would be
processed.
The outage of the RTGS affected the Clearing House Automated
Payments System, or CHAPS, which handles large transactions
including payments for house purchases. CHAPS in a separate
statement said was extending operational hours through 7:40 p.m.
London time. CHAPS processed more than GBP70 trillion pounds ($113
trillion) last year, an average of GBP277 billion a day.
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