THE MARKETS continued to take a battering last week, with the FTSE 100 again falling below 6300 points. When is the rout going to end? asks Rob Arkwright, Hargreave Hale and Co

With investors anxiously awaiting a bounce and recovery before the end of the year, there appears to be no respite from the cruel, unstable market.

For investors heavily weighted towards technology, it is turning into a bloodbath. Once again this volatile sector, which this time last year saw meteoric rises and made investors fast profits, is now causing widespread damage.

How the tide has turned. The question then, was when is the technology bubble going to burst? Now the question is when is the savage decline going to stop?

The retreat in technology stocks has been happening since March, but now seems to be going into overdrive.

This has been boosted by constant bad news over earnings and profit warnings coming from the US technology sector. This is sending the likes of Bookham Technology, Baltimore Technologies and ARM Holdings into turmoil.

It was the turn of US telecoms giant Lucent Technologies to issue bad news last week, warning that it may cut expectations for its fourth-quarter profits.

Confidence amongst private investors and institutions is rock bottom, with the farcical US elections adding to the misery and uncertainty on markets across the world.

Among financials, broker Merrill Lynch recommended investors to reduce their exposure to fund managers and brokerage houses.

This is as a result of worries over further weakness, uncertainty on the markets next year and a fall in new issues.

This resulted in falls for Amvescap and Schroders. Even the banking sector couldn't escape the sell off, with Merrills also downgrading Lloyds TSB and the mortgage banks.

On a more positive note, various 'old economy' stocks such as Boots and Tesco are seeing rises, as investors continue to switch into more stable, defensive stocks.

Invensys, the struggling engineering firm, which has recently been in bid talks, saw huge volumes of trading after it reported its results.

After suffering from a profit warning earlier in the year, it announced that it is to spin off its power system division in London and the US next summer. Shares saw a good rally.