FTSE muted after recent gains

Trading on the FTSE 100 was largely flat during the morning session today, with performances from banking shares being mixed.

HSBC and Standard Chartered dropped by 0.7 per cent and 0.6 per cent respectively, Reuters reports, but there were gains for Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays.

Overall, the index was up 1.09 points to 5,373.47 points at 08:49 GMT, meaning it has been unable to continue the strong rally that was seen during the past four sessions.

One group seen performing well was retailers, as investors showed interest due to the jump in sales recorded in the run-up to Christmas.

Next, Kingfisher, Home Retail Group and Carphone Warehouse were all up in early trading and there were also increases for drinks producers Diageo and SABMiller.

The gains that were seen yesterday - which resulted in the FTSE finishing up 43.72 points - were prompted by a surge on Wall Street caused by the release of favourable economic data in the US.ADNFCR-2318-ID-19530711-ADNFCR