As Footsie was seeing red again Tuesday, big banks and UK mortgages were a trending theme.
Scandal hit HSBC (LON:HSBC) was hitting headlines again as it emerged that it will next week cut thousands of jobs - up to 20,000 - according to reports, across its global operations.
Stuart Gulliver, who took the helm in 2011, is expected to announce the cuts in a bid to reduce costs to boost profitability on a strategy day on June 9. They will include the repercussions from the sale of the bank's operations in Brazil and Turkey.
Gulliver and chairman Douglas Flint appeared before a Treasury select committee earlier this year and apologised for misconduct over tax at the Swiss private banking arm.
HSBC shed 0.08% to stand at 624.70p.
Also in the news was Britain's fourth largest supermarket Morrison's (LON:MRW), which saw its shares boosted as it recorded a sales increase for the first time in over a year.
Sales rose 0.1% in the 12 weeks to May 24 compared to last year, according to Kantar, while Asda, Sainsbury's (LON:SBRY) and Tesco (LON:TSCO) suffered a decline.
The obsession with house prices was also a theme once more as there was call for celebration, as more mortgages were signed off in April than had been expected. Indeed, the number grew at the fastest rate since the same month in 2009.
Low interest rates are encouraging buyers, while the General Election uncertainty did not put off purchasers, the figures appeared to show..
Wolseley (LON:WOS) nudged up 2,26% as the plumber's merchant said trading profit for its ongoing businesses in the three months to April 30 increased by 20.3% to £195mln at constant exchange rates (CER).
Revenue of the ongoing businesses rose 12.4% to £3.3bn over last year on a CER basis, including like-for-like growth of 7.5%. Foreign exchange movements increased trading profit by £11m
The top London riser was miner Metminco (LON:MNC), up 31.37% to 0.34p. The group is hoping to have a revised mining study for its flagship Los Calatos copper project in Chile done by the end of June.
Conversely, SeaEnergy (LON:SEA) was down 26.3% as the group said in a trading update that the slump in activity in the oil and gas sector is having repercussions for its Return to Scene business.
US focused Magnolia Petroleum (LON:MAGP) added over 7% to 0.75p as it told investors it will be participating in 16 new wells in proven US oil and gas projects.
It will have a minority interest, from 0.21% up to 10.94%, in these drill programmes which target formations such as the Bakken, in North Dakota, and the Woodford and Mississippi Lime plays, in Oklahoma.