Has Bart Becht, the chief executive of Reckitt Benckiser, which reports full-year results next Wednesday, finally lost his outperforming touch?

Shares in Reckitt and Unilever, its rival consumer product giant, which reports on Thursday, were on the slide amid fears over falling demand for household cleaning products across Europe, the key market for both companies.

Andrew Wood, an Alliance Bern-stein analyst, raised specific concerns over Reckitt. He noted that Nielsen market data showed growth of household product sales across Europe slowing to 2 per cent in the third quarter last year, compared with Reckitt’s 8 per cent organic growth. For the previous six quarters the two figures had matched almost exactly. He said that this means that the Nielsen data is suddenly wrong or that supermarkets have not sold all the Cillit Bang, Air Wick and Cif they bought from Reckitt. Worryingly, the latest data shows the slowdown in European household care sales worsened in January.

Reckitt was down 48p at £26. Unilever lost 41p to £16.76.

The FTSE 100 lacked direction, with a slight rise in morning trading turning negative when Wall Street opened in the red, and it closed down three points at 6,026.2. Banks enjoyed a rally amid hopes of an interest-rate cut, with Royal Bank of Scotland leading the way, up 16¾p to 405½p, on reports that its chairman had told investors that it had no intention of cutting the dividend or of announcing the raising of capital when it reports results.

Carphone Warehouse was the heaviest faller, off 24¾p at 314¾p, as hopes for a bid from Best Buy faded. There was also profit-taking before BT’s third-quarter figures on Thursday. BT fell 2½p to 262p.

ITV rose 2.1p to 78.6p amid rehashed rumours of a private equity bid. It is understood that Apax is not interested. Provident and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts were the other predators mentioned, but analysts at Oriel Securities believe that the shares should be sold because a bid is unlikely with the advertising market in decline.

Friends Provident was up 4.7p at 140.7p on talk that JC Flowers was close to making a bid for the insurer.

Rio Tinto eased 73p to £55.27 after its rally on Friday. Chinalco’s president told Australian journalists yesterday that it would not, for now, increase the 12 per cent stake that it took in Rio on Friday. Anglo American, however, rose 35p to £29.45 after signing an outline deal with China Development Bank, the bank that funded Chinalco’s Rio purchase, to develop projects in China and Africa. Vedanta Resources, the miner often seen as a potential target for the Chinese, was up 59p at £20.19.

FKI fell 1p to 66p after Melrose said that it was the mystery predator and that it was considering offering 70p a share in cash and shares. Melrose lost ½p to 149½p. Kaupthing said that Melrose could pay 89p a share, raise £300 million in a share issue and still enhance its earnings by 24 per cent.

New York: Wall Street fell as investors took profits after the market’s best week in four years. The drift continued despite a Commerce Department report showing that orders at US factories exceeded expectations, rising by 2.3 per cent in December. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 108.00 points at 12,635.20.

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