FTSE 100 down in thin midday trade

Footsie was modestly lower at midday on the back of telecom weakness, although BT fared well. Trading activity was notably thin but this was put down to the spate of holidays in European cities rather than the UK's May Day demonstrations. At midday the FTSE 100 slipped 40.3 points to 5926.6. BT headed a raft of old economy risers among the FTSE 100. BT shares lifted on news it is in talks with rival Vodafone regarding the sale of BT's 20% stake in Japan Telecom and its mobile phone subsidiary J-Phone. Such a deal should be worth over £3bn and would go some way into soothing BT's...