By Rob Arkwright Hargreave Hale Ltd THE FTSE 100 fell below the psychological 5,000 point barrier again at the beginning of the week -- its lowest level for four weeks. The market lost all its gains, and more, from last week, following reports of consumer optimism plummeting on both sides of the Atlantic and also, ahead of the US GDP figures due out this week.

In the US, confidence has fallen to a seven-year low. In the UK, confidence has dropped to its lowest level since last year's fuel crisis.

The World Bank also said in its semi-annual report on global economic prospects that "the global economy is slipping precariously towards recession".

However, the markets received a brief boost on Wednesday when the US released its much feared GDP figures.

The figures revealed the worst drop in US growth for 10 years, but were better than expected.

On the results front, discount retailer Matalan, announced its figures this week, revealing another good rise in profits.

Annual pre-tax profits rose to £49.4 million from £35 million last time, but this was overshadowed by its admission that sales growth had slowed in recent weeks.

As a result of the recent decline and failure to hit targets, its shares plummeted over 15 per cent to an 18-month low.

Paint and specialist chemicals group, ICI, revealed a fall in nine-month profits from £346 million to £318 million. Following this, the company announced it is to cut 1,300 jobs worldwide.

Finally, old technology favourite, Bookham Technology, the optical equipment group, rallied slightly this week. It released results in line with expectations, but more importantly, said it had halved its quarterly cash burn rate to £15.5 million.