Friday Morning Market: Tate & Lyle strikes a sour note

UK markets are ending the week and the financial quarter on a cautious note as investors realise short-term profits ahead of the week after the recent rally.

By 8.30am the FTSE 100 index was down 24 points and the Mid-250 index 36 points lower.

In Europe both the CAC-40 in France and the German DAX were little changed.

Tate and Lyle was a major casualty at 425p, down 130p, following a profits warning.

Enterprise Inns shed 9p to 590p as it delayed its refinancing plans until next year.

Vedanta Resources led the miners down with a fall of 52p to £20.05

Among the smaller caps JJB Sports rose 12.5p to 158p after posting interim results no worse than expected and New Star Asset Management gave up 30p to 390p in spite of a 39% jump in first-half revenue.

Monsoon improved 10p to 417p as chairman Peter Simon offered to buy-out the company for 424p-a-share.