Britain's top shares eased back from recent highs on Friday, as rising concerns over political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa prompted investors to sell out of miners and net recent profits among banks.
The FTSE 100 was down 8.55 points. or 0.1 percent, at 6,078.83 by 0908 GMT, having closed 2 points higher on Thursday near levels not seen since June 2008. It is up 3.7 percent this month.
"It looks like a bit of profit taking," said Keith Bowman, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. "Although the market so far has responded well to the political troubles in the Middle East and Bahrain, that may be adding just adding a little bit to the profit taking this morning."
Miners were lower with Anglo American, the world's fourth-largest diversified miner, down 0.9 percent after results, as copper hugged recent lows.
Gold and silver, however, seen as safe havens in tumultuous times, rose to five-week and 31-year highs respectively, as fears of political tensions spreading across the Middle East intensified.
Precious metals miners African Barrick Gold, which beat profit expectation on Wednesday, and Fresnillo added 1.2 percent and 1.0 percent respectively.
Brent crude oil rose towards $103 a barrel, with oil major BP 1.0 percent higher.
BANKING RALLY BECLAMED
Banks, enjoying a strong run and up almost 3 percent on the week after solid results from Barclays and French peers Societe Generale and BNP Paribas, were weaker on the day as investors banked profits.
HSBC and Standard Chartered were off 0.3 percent and 0.7 percent respectively.
The world's top central bankers will take centre stage on Friday ahead of the G20 meeting which appears set to struggle to make headway on an ambitious French agenda.
BAE Systems was the top faller, 1.8 percent lower as brokers cut their target prices on the defence contractor following its cautious outlook on Thursday.
On the second line, Rentokil Initial shed 8.2 percent after the pest control to cleaning company's full-year pretax profit was below forecasts and it failed to resume dividend payments.
Defensively perceived stocks were among the top risers as investors rotated out of riskier assets and into sectors such as utilities and tobaccos.
Severn Trent rose 1.5 percent, helped by a target price hike from Goldman Sachs, while United Utilities added 1.3 percent.
British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco rose 0.6 percent and 0.7 percent respectively.
