On a day when global stockmarkets were taking a bashing, even a market debut by sports car giant Ferrari didn't exactly speed off the line.
Ferrari, a name synonymous with F1 drivers like Michael Schumacher, Nigel Mansell, and Niki Lauda, floated in Milan today, having started share trading in New York last October.
It is beginning a new era - separate from its parent Fiat Crysler.
Shares in the sportscar maker opened at €43 but soon fell to €42.45. Fiat shares also lost a third of their value.
Italy’s Agnelli family founded Fiat over 100 years ago and is Ferrari’s new largest shareholder with a 24% stake.
It comes as another motoring story was gaining traction in webworld. Well-followed Tesla, the electric car maker, managed to reach targets for deliveries in its final quarter, selling 17,400 of its vehicles - against a target of 17,000 to 19,000.
The Elon Musk headed firm had forecast deliveries of between 17,000 and 19,000 in the three months.
Back in Blighty, Footsie is down over 2.2% at the time of writing as China's stock slump and then trading halt weighs along with UK manufacturing data.
Indeed, it's been a damp start to the trading year and the UK floods haven't helped. Swiss broker UBS reckons there will be net losses of between £150mln and £308mln from the storms named Desmond, Eva and Frank at RSA Insurance (LON:RSA), down 3.12% Direct Line (LON:DLG), down 3.36% on the day and Aviva (LON:AV.), down 3.93%.
In small caps, the big riser was React Energy (LON:REAC), which soared 83% to 4.13p as it unveiled new plans for its Newry Biomass plant in northern Ireland, where a deal has been done to ‘repower’ the project.
Newry Biomass Ltd, 50.01% owned by React, will, via a €5mlndeal with Spanish company EBIOSS Energy acquire the EQTEC Integrated Biomass Gasification Power Plant which will power the project.
Also in the news today was big cap pharma firm Shire (LON:SHP), which is closing in on its long-awaited US$32bn potential takeover of US rival Baxalta, reports today claimed.
The companies could announce the deal "within days" as rumours circulated that Shire was preparing to increase a US$30bn all-share approach made last July.