The London stock market looked set to repeat yesterday's falls as the FTSE 100 index of leading shares dived into the red within moments of opening.

After yesterday's close down more than 100 points, the index was further worried by slides in foreign equity markets overnight.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 216.5 last night while the Hong Kong Hang Seng was down 426 points.

The FTSE followed suit and hit an early low of 5686.5 down 57.4, a few minutes after opening.

Carlton Communications slipped 12p to 475p after the media group issued its first end of year results since the launch of ONdigital its joint venture into digital TV.

The group announced that the digital launch had knocked £28m off profits.

Granada Group, Carlton's partner in the ONdigital venture dipped 1p to 945p.

The banking sector continued to take the brunt of the market nerves.

Barclay's - still wobbling after the shock departure of its chief executive last week - was down 20p at £13.55p.

HSBC, which is soon to impose its name on its subsidiary Midland Bank also slid down 55p to £15.85p.

Lloyds TSB - down 31½p at 811p - and NatWest, down 30p at £10.76p were also hit while the former building societies with their lower exposure to the international market slipped less severely.

Halifax dropped 26.5p to 845p, but Alliance and Leicester held firmer down just 2.5p at 905.5p and Abbey National was unchanged at 1225.