Overall the leading index has edged up 6.58 points to 6687.66, with investors nervous about the prospect of the US Federal Reserve tapering its $85bn a month bond buying programme, following Wednesday night's minutes from the central bank's last meeting.
The longer Ben Bernanke avoids tapering, the more the market will demand it.
The Fed continues to distinguish tapering from rate rises after the bad reception the idea of tapering got from the markets in the summer.
If unemployment continues to drop and inflation behaves then tapering may begin later this year and continue in stages.
If that happens, we could start tapering our purchases then.
Now that the Fed is "tapering"—that is, gradually reducing its asset purchases, will the markets come under prolonged pressure?As always, psychology plays a big role.
Similarly, "corners of the fields which, from their shape, could not be cut up into the usual acre or half-acre strips, were sometimes divided into tapering strips pointed at one end" and were called "gores", or "gored acres".
WHEN the first whispers of Fed "tapering" set off a storm in emerging markets last year, there were lots of reasons to think a repeat of the emerging-market crises of the 1990s was not in the offing.
This amounts to an effective tightening in monetary conditions, brought on by warnings made by Mr Bernanke last month, and reinforced at his press conference this week, that a "tapering" of the pace of asset purchases could get under way later this year.Fed officials are doubtless annoyed by the market's skittish reaction to the idea of tapering.
At best, coming good will consist of a tapering off of violence, and a crab-wise movement towards a political accommodation between the governments elected under Western supervision and the militias now fighting them.
Worries about tapering this summer caused capital flight from places like India, which further impaired growth (and nudged up interest rates) and pushed its fiscal deficit up to a forecast 8.5% for the 2013/14 fiscal year.Even countries that have looked prosperous over the last few years now seem a bit less healthy.
