Britain's top share index fell early on Monday, tracking weaker showings in Asia after falls on Wall Street on Friday, with declines by miners and banks countering a rally from pharmaceutical stocks.
At 0827 GMT, the FTSE 100 was down 23.34 points, or 0.5 percent, at 5,058.86, having closed up 0.1 percent on Friday.
"We've had the negative drag of the metals prices coming down — base metals in particular — which has taken the shine off the miners." said Richard Hunter, head of UK equities at Hargreaves Lansdown.
He added that "the German market has gone a bit weaker and I think ours has probably moved in line with that."
Hunter said there may be some concern in the German market about the affordability of potential new tax cuts after Chancellor Angela Merkel secured a parliamentary majority with the business-friendly Free Democrats in Sunday's election.
Miners were under pressure after Anglo American said commodities growth in China, which has a huge appetite for resources, may ease over the short-term, though longer term the country's fundamentals were sound.
Anglo American, Rio Tinto, Antofagasta, Vedanta Resources and Randgold Resources fell between 0.7 and 1.6 percent.
Energy stocks were also on the back foot, with oil prices slipping below $66 a barrel as investors focused on the halting economic recovery in the United States and shrugging off escalating tensions between Iran and the West.
BG Group and Royal Dutch Shell shed 0.7 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively.
Banks were out of favour, led lower by Lloyds Banking Group , which remained plagued by rights issue concerns and fears of what The European Commission may force the bank to do as compensation for state aid it has received.
A broker downgrade also weighed on Royal Bank of Scotland, down 2.7 percent, with ING cutting its recommendation on the stock to "sell" from "hold".
The bank will break up RBS Asset Management by selling the majority of the 50 billion pounds ($79.94 billion) division as part of a series of fund raising moves, the Daily Telegraph said on Saturday.
Standard Chartered, however, rose 0.1 percent, boosted by an RBS target price hike to 2,000 pence from 1,600.
DRUGMAKERS IN DEMAND
Good gains were seen from drugmakers, with GlaxoSmithKline up 0.9 percent and AstraZeneca, 1.2 percent firmer boosted by M&A activity in the sector, notably Belgium's Solvay selling its pharma business.
GlaxoSmithKline has also completed an innovative 1.5 billion euro contract with Brazil, guaranteeing sales of its pneumococcal vaccine Synflorix over the entire life of the product, the Financial Times said on Monday.
AstraZeneca and Belgium's UCB have formed an alliance for the commercialisation of UCB's drug Cimzia in Brazil for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease.
Wolseley was another big riser, taking on 4.7 percent following above-forecast full-year results from the plumbing supllies firm which prompted Deutsche Bank to upgrade its rating on the stock to "buy" from "hold".
The annual drop in house prices in England and Wales eased to 5.6 percent in September from 6.7 percent in August, the slowest annual pace of decline since August 2008, property data company Hometrack said on Monday.
