London close: Market closes at low for the day

An attempt at an early afternoon rally was short-lived and Footsie ended at its low for the day as investors continue to worry about the situation in Japan and sovereign debt in Europe after the downgrade of Portugal's debt by ratings agency Moody's.A sharp fall on Wall Street did not help sentiment in London. There were nine risers in the FTSE 100. Catastrophe risk modeling firm Eqecat estimates that the insured costs of the Japanese earthquake could be between $12bn and $25bn. Rival AIR Worldwide has previously estimated between $15bn and $35bn. Goldman Sachs reckons that the total cost could be as much as 16 trillion yen (£124bn) as lack of power could hamper economic growth.There has been a brace of executive departures in the leisure industry with the chief executives of hotels group Intercontinental Hotels and pubs group Mitchells & Butlers settling their tabs and moving on. InterContinental Hotels' chief executive Andrew Cosslett shocked the Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inns chains owner by handing in his notice. Long-serving Cosslett will stand down on 30 June to be replaced by finance director Richard Solomons, who has been on the board since 2003. Solomons is also Head of Commercial Development. The shares are lower.Mitchells & Butlers said chief executive, Adam Fowle, is to leave the company by mutual consent after a period of two years in the post.Elsewhere in the pubs sector, the food offering at Marston's is defying consumers' attempts at belt tightening. The company said it has "delivered an encouraging and robust performance despite the continued economic uncertainty" in the 23 weeks to 12 March, with profitability in line with expectations.The two biggest fallers in the FTSE 100 index have gone ex-dividend. HSBC has fallen by more than double its dividend of 7.66p a share. Standard Life has not declined quite as much as its final dividend payment of 8.65p a share. Tullow Oil has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Uganda that should bring an end to the conflict over taxation and enable it to push ahead with developing its Ugandan assets. This initially perked up the shares but the fat that no details of the agreement have been published meant that by the end of the day Tullow was only slightly ahead. Associated British Foods is going well after being upgraded from neutral to outperform by Credit Suisse. Sausage roll fans filed into Greggs in record numbers during 2010, pushing profits up almost 8%, and like-for-like sales growth so far in 2011 is double what it was for all of 2010. The Newcastle-based company, which operates more than 1,480 value bakers shops up and down the country, made £52.5m in the 52 weeks to 1 January, a record high and up from £48.8m in 2009. Greggs has plans to open upmarket outlets in the South. It's a case of 'chips with everything' for Imagination Technologies, which continues to see growing demand for its graphics chip technology, though its Digital Audio Broadcasting division, PURE, is finding things a bit tougher. Venerable Witan Investment Trust, founded 102 years ago, showed there is still life in the old dog as it outperformed its benchmark index in 2010. Net asset value (NAV) total return in 2010 was 18.9%, compared with a return on the trust's benchmark index of 15.5%.Fashion retailer French Connection made even more in the 12 months to 31 January than the hefty increase promised at last month's trading update. Profit before tax from continuing operations leapt to £7.3m from £0.7m the year before. It had predicted "at least £6.8m" in February. Sales rose 2% to £205m.Robert Wiseman Dairies is increasing the volume of milk it supplies to the Co-operative Group following a new two-year agreement that starts in August.Mainland European newspaper publisher Mecom said it had seen an improvement in digital advertising revenues and plans to pay a dividend this autumn.Oil and gas exploration company Bahamas Petroleum is to raise in the region of £45.6m through a placing of shares at 18.75p each. The funds will be used to speed up the company's exploration programme.Upstream oil and gas company Sound Oil hit a 52-week high Wednesday after its Italian subsidiary, Apennine Energy, signed a contract with Hydro Drilling International to supply a drilling rig for the Marciano-1ST well completion operation.Investment company SVM UK Active Fund rose at the end of the day after Cyrun Finance Ltd said that it may make a cash offer based on Formula Asset Value. FTSE 100 - Risers 3i Group (III) 291.00p +2.21%Associated British Foods (ABF) 949.50p +1.01%Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,460.00p +0.79%Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) 1,196.00p +0.59%Tullow Oil (TLW) 1,355.00p +0.44%ICAP (IAP) 496.20p +0.22%National Grid (NG.) 544.00p +0.09%Investec (INVP) 444.70p +0.07%SABMiller (SAB) 1,984.50p +0.05%FTSE 100 - Fallers Standard Life (SL.) 199.50p -5.32%Invensys (ISYS) 325.00p -3.90%HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 622.50p -3.64%International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (IAG) 212.90p -3.53%Man Group (EMG) 249.50p -3.52%Barclays (BARC) 282.00p -3.42%Aggreko (AGK) 1,469.00p -3.36%BAE Systems (BA.) 306.40p -3.34%Essar Energy (ESSR) 463.00p -3.32%BT Group (BT.A) 175.50p -3.15%FTSE 250 - Risers AZ Electronic Materials SA (WI) (AZEM) 270.00p +4.65%Hansen Transmissions International NV (DI) (HSN) 48.94p +4.33%Carpetright (CPR) 732.50p +3.90%Savills (SVS) 374.00p +3.89%Brown (N.) Group (BWNG) 262.10p +3.80%ITE Group (ITE) 243.60p +3.22%Bodycote (BOY) 316.00p +3.10%Ocado Group (OCDO) 210.40p +2.68%Kenmare Resources (KMR) 36.00p +2.56%Enterprise Inns (ETI) 90.30p +2.56%FTSE 250 - Fallers Imagination Technologies Group (IMG) 430.80p -6.87%Aveva Group (AVV) 1,579.00p -4.13%RPS Group (RPS) 204.50p -4.04%Temple Bar Inv Trust (TMPL) 831.00p -3.93%Cookson Group (CKSN) 623.50p -3.93%Fidelity European Values (FEV) 1,086.00p -3.81%Law Debenture Corp. (LWDB) 321.00p -3.72%Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) 47.26p -3.63%Domino Printing Sciences (DNO) 611.50p -3.55%Euromoney Institutional Investor (ERM) 666.00p -3.48%