Commodity weakness drives FTSE fall

Energy companies, which gained the previous session tracking higher oil prices, turned tail as crude dipped back below $70 per barrel.

BP , Royal Dutch Shell , BG Group , Tullow Oil and Cairn Energy fell between 1.1 and 2.6 percent.

By 8:47 a.m., the UK blue chip index was 61.08 points lower at 4,279.63 after closing 91.50 points higher on Wednesday at 4,340.71 on the first day of the new quarter.

"The market is finding it hard to gain any direction after the strong uplift in April and May," said Jeremy Batstone-Carr

analyst at Charles Stanley.

"It's torn between a view that earnings forecasts for 2009 may be raised and those for 2010 may be cut."

PAYROLLS EYED

No domestic data is due for release on Thursday, so all the attention will be on the U.S. nonfarm payrolls -- bought forward a day from Friday this month due to the Independence Day holiday -- which are forecast to come in with a fall of 355,000 in June, after May's less then expected 345,000 decline.

U.S. unemployment is estimated to rise to 9.6 percent last month, up from 9.4 percent in June.