By Jon Hitchin Hargreave Hale Ltd THE FTSE 100 fell to its lowest level since October 1998 this week.

There seems to be no end to the current freefall.

On the economic data front, weak industrial production data figures issued on Thursday were very disappointing largely due to the present crisis in the hi-tech sector. The market is also nervous of non-farm payroll figures to be announced in the US.

The fact that the Bank of England decided to leave interest rates on hold at five per cent did not help matters largely due to strong consumer spending and rising house prices, though there are hopes that the Bank of England may cut rates again before the end of the year.

On the company front, Marconi hit the headlines again.

After hitting its all-time high of £12.50 a year ago (almost to the day) the shares are now trading at 34p (at the time of writing) after another profits warning on Tuesday.

Marconi has a massive problem -- £4.4 billion of debt, on which it obviously pays huge amounts of interest every year.

Though Marconi has plans to cut its debt, many analysts believe that Marconi will fail to meet its targets. Negative trading statements from Marconi's rival, Alcatel, have not helped matters.

The remainder of the technology sector has also continued to struggle over the last couple of weeks with stocks hitting new lows.

Many of the stocks in this sector look set to be booted out of the FTSE 100 later this month in the quarterly shake-up.

The current difficulties are not confined to the TMT sector though. Diageo announced disappointing results this week due to people not eating enough burgers at their "Burger King" outlets!