London shares headed south again as investors continued to fret about slowing growth in China and the timing of the rise in US interest rates.
The FTSE 100 closed 50 points lower at 5,909 despite a return to favour of mining stocks, which form a large part of the top share index.
Top of the tree was Glencore (LON:GLEN), which rose 17% to 80.25p, though some pundits are calling it a dead cat bounce.
The debt-laden company said today its business remains ‘operationally and financially robust’ even as it proceeds with plans to reduce its debt to US$10.2 billion.
Sector peers Antofagasta (LON:ANTO), Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) and BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) were also showing up blue on traders' screens, as were supermarket chains Tesco (LON:TSCO), Sainsbury's (LON:SBRY) and Morrisons (LON:MRW) and energy leviathans Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSB), BP (LON:BP.) and BG (LON:BG.).
Way down in the Footsie cellar was builders' merchant Wolseley (LON:WOS), which fell 523p to 3,656p after it warned that markets remained tough.
The company lowered like-for-like sales guidance for the first half of the current year, which might explain why house builders also suffered more than most today.
Among the small caps, Alecto Minerals (LON:ALO) stormed 35% higher to 0.14p on news that the company and partner Desert Gold had completed a study highlighting the "robust economics" of developing a potential 400,000 tonnes per annum low-cost gold heap leach operation combining Alecto's Kossanto East gold scheme in Mali and Desert Gold's Farabantourou gold project.
Madagascar Oil (LON:MOIL) added almost a third to its market cap as it secured additional funding while it continues its search for a partner to work on the Tsimiroro field.
Mobile software specialist Globo (LON:GBO) was wanted after it reported another strong half for sales, profits and user growth.
Revenue in the half year to June rose 56% to €72.4mln (2014: €46.5mln), while profits rose by 37% to €34.2mln, prompting the share price to rise by 3.5p to 38.5p.
Going the other way was Xtract Resources (LON:XTR), down 0.09p at 0.22p, as it scaled back its profit expectations for the current year after an earthquake in Chile undermined the haulage road at the Chepica mine.
Elsewhere in Latin America, Mirada (LON:MIRA) took a tumble after announcing the next phase of a contract roll-out with South American media group Televisa delayed by a few months.
The set-top box software specialist's shares retreated to 7.625p from 10.625p overnight.