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		</div><p><a href="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/ftse-hit-by-us-job-market-slide.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full" title="London's FTSE 100 Index dropped 26.3 points to 5993.2." src="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/min-ftse-hit-by-us-job-market-slide.jpg" alt="London's FTSE 100 Index dropped 26.3 points to 5993.2."/></a></p>
<p>Investors have remained on the sidelines after a mixed report on America&#8217;s jobs market failed to ease caution.</p>
<p>Closely-watched government data showed the US unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in almost two years last month, but fewer jobs were created than expected.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average struggled to find direction in early trade, while London&#8217;s FTSE 100 Index dropped 26.3 points to 5993.2.</p>
<p>Investors have been moving to lock-in profits in the past two sessions, with the Footsie seeing a 24 point slide on Thursday as nerves took hold after a festive shares rally that took the top tier to fresh two-and-a-half-year highs.</p>
<p>The US jobs figures &#8211; a key indicator of the health of America&#8217;s economy &#8211; showed the unemployment rate falling to 9.4%, while a net total of 103,000 jobs were created last month, which was less than the 150,000 pencilled in.</p>
<p>Among London stocks trading lower, miners retreated with silver specialist Fresnillo down 42p to 1536p and African Barrick Gold off 10.5p to 571p. Arm Holdings, which was Thursday&#8217;s big riser after Microsoft said it would run the latest version of its Windows software on Arm&#8217;s microchips, gave back some of the gains to stand 18p lower at 463.8p, a drop of 4%.</p>
<p>One of the bright spots of the session came from the retail sector after sportswear chain JD Sports Fashion maintained its recent run of forecast-beating updates. Despite the snow in December, JD said like-for-like sales at its UK stores, which include 350 JD Sports and Size? outlets, were up 2.5% in the last five weeks of 2010.</p>
<p>JD also revealed that profits for the year to January 28 will exceed City expectations of £75.4 million. Its shares added another 2% or 22p to 887.5p, while rival Sports Direct International gained 3.7p to 168.6p.</p>
<p>It was a better day for many high street players, with Next and fashion group Burberry ahead in the top flight by 20p to 2094p and 10p to 1131p respectively. B&#038;Q owner Kingfisher was up 2.3p to 262.8p after suffering earlier in the week following snow-hit sales reports from a swathe of retailers.</p>
<p>In the FTSE 250, tour operator Thomas Cook dropped 2.1p to 198.3p after news the planned merger of its high street business with The Co-operative had been referred to the Office of Fair Trading. But budget airline easyJet was on the rise, ahead 14.4p to 469.4p, as the market reacted well to December traffic figures seen as robust given the snow disruption.</p>
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