Bank rate stasis leaves FTSE on the downturn

This morning's confident FTSE trading was soon wiped out when the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee voted to maintain the bank base rate at its current level of 4%. Man Group, Prudential and Aviva all lost ground again after Royal & SunAlliance's strong start this morning, as the FTSE dropped 25.70 points or 0.6% to 4078. Man Group fell 76p or 7.4% to 950p after announcing it would sell £375m worth of convertible bonds, possibly to service some of the £500m+ debts it carries in bank loans. Aviva then dropped 20p or 3.8% to 510p and Prudential fell 24p or 4.9% to 46...