After a brief spell trading above the day’s open, London’s leading index has taken a sharp fall in mid-morning trading.

The FTSE 100 is currently trading at around the 6050 level (10.30 London time) after hitting 6100 earlier. Invensys is this morning’s big gainer, following weekend speculation that the engineering giant is the target of a potential takeover from several suitors – speculation that has caused the company’s share price to jump by over 4%. Still on the subject of takeover speculation, Lonmin’s share price has received a bump (+1.30%) following a story that Xstrata chief Mick Davies is eyeing the platinum miner. Other miners making headway in the early session were Fresnillo (+5.31%) and Randgold (+2.78%).

At the other end of the scale it is the banks that are proving to be the drag on the FTSE. RBS (-2.62%) finds itself leading the losers following an article in the FT highlighting the bank’s planned sell-off of £1.6 billion of commercial property loans was expected to receive bids significantly less than the value of the actual loans. Other banks joining RBS among the losers were Barclays and Lloyds. With the Presidents' Day holiday stateside and continuing tensions in the Middle East sending investors to the safe-havens of gold and oil, the FTSE could well be in for a choppy day’s trading.