FTSE dips as falling oil price weighs

Tue May 27, 2008 5:32pm BST
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By Michael Taylor

LONDON (Reuters) - The blue-chip index ended down 0.5 percent on Tuesday as falling U.S. crude weighed on oil shares, while SABMiller rose on reports that Belgian rival Inbev

was eyeing the brewer.

The FTSE 100 fell 28.8 points to 6,058.5, in thin trading following the public holiday on Monday.

"The market was all over the place, it was up in the morning and now it's down, with not much help from Wall Street," said Mike Lenhoff, chief strategist at Brewin Dolphin.

"I thought after the sell-off last week, we would see the market a little oversold, but it seems it is not, and this suggests to me that we could see a little bit more downside."

SABMiller rose 6.9 percent to top the FTSE 100 leaderboard after a report in the Financial Times over the weekend said Inbev was not only working on a $46 billion (23 billion pound) bid for Anheuser-Busch, but was also interested in pursuing SAB should a bid for Anheuser fail.

Heavyweight oil shares headed south as crude fell to about $130 a barrel after a stronger U.S. dollar helped pull prices down from peaks hit when rebels attacked Nigerian oil facilities.

Cairn Energy, BP and Shell were down 0.5-2.1 percent.  Continued...

 
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