British Airways edged down 0.2p at 235.4p as its strike woes continued. The carrier will announce later today which of its flights are likely to be hit when cabin crew begin their walk-out.

Only Royal Bank of Scotland made any progress among the banking fraternity, edging up 0.16p at 42.73p. Lloyds closed off 0.9p at 57.57p, Barclays was 3.25p lower at 348.6p and Standard Chartered lost 3p at 1,731.5p.

Building supplies giant Wolseley was one of the day's biggest blue chip losers, off 56p at 1,620p, as home builders slumped on news house price growth stalled in the last month.

Other notable first line casualties included insurer Prudential, down 15p at 537.5p, oil services group Petrofac, 28p lower at 1,212p, and broadcaster BSkyB, 14p lower at 585p.

On the upside with blue chips, distribution group Bunzl ticked up 3.5p at 721p on announcing the acquisition of Swiss retail distributor Weita.

BT Group was high on the leaderboard, ahead 1.4p at 124.7p, helped by an upgrade to buy from hold at Citigroup, with the target price raised to 150p from 145p.

Few retailers found favour on news from the British Retail Consortium that retail sales in central London in February were 9.9% higher on a like-for-like basis than a year ago. Additionally, the BDO High Street Sales Tracker for the week to 7th March 2010 showed high street sales up 9.2% on the equivalent week in 2009.

Marks & Spencer made the most of the news, ticking up 3.4p at 361.5p.

Utilities were also in vogue, with Centrica topping the FTSE leaderboard for the day, up 4.7p at 294.7p after Nomura raised its target on the stock to 370p from 340p. Severn Trent gained 5p at 1,200p and National Grid rose 3.5p at 654p.

Pharmaceutical firms were established amongst the winners, with GlaxoSmithKline 5p higher at 1,248p and Shire up 17p at 1,466p, although AstraZeneca slipped 4.5p at 2,917.5p.