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UK stocks continued to fall in afternoon trading on Tuesday, even after the pound slid to a one-month low as the UK and the EU blamed each other for a failure to agree a Brexit deal.
At 4.30pm the benchmark FTSE 100 index was down 30 points or 0.4% at 7,167.
London Stock Exchange was the worst-performing stock in the main index, down 5.2% to £70.65 after Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing (HKEX) dropped its £32bn bid for the British bourse operator.
HKEX said it was 'disappointed that it has been unable to engage with the management of LSEG in realizing this vision, and as a consequence has decided it is not in the best interests of HKEX shareholders to pursue this proposal'.
MID- AND SMALL-CAP MOVERS
On the FTSE 250, airline operator Easyjet dived 7.5% to £10.85 despite forecasting a full-year profit at the upper end of its previous guidance range.
The budget carrier also warned costs would jump 12% due to increased capacity, higher fuel costs and adverse FX movements.
Iron-ore group Ferrexpo shed 4.4% to 149p as it downgraded its production outlook blaming a tough market environment.
Recruitment companies PageGroup and Robert Walters both warned on profits, sending their shares down 12% and 5% to two-year lows of 369p and 463p respectively.
Bucking the negative trend, electric products distributor Electrocomponents gained 2% to 612p as it reported a 5% rise in first-half revenue on a like-for-like basis, owing to a strong performance in its industrial division.
Auto retailer Motorpoint reversed earlier losses to trade up 2.3% at 222p after guiding for first-half revenue growth of just 1%. The company also announced a share buyback of up to £10m.
Also, advertising company S4Capital rose 5% to 146p after it agreed to acquire tech-focused digital marketing agency Firewood in a deal that valued the target at $150m.
S4Capital also launched a £100m equity raising at 142p per share to help fund the deal.