Investors hung up on Vodafone yesterday amid fears that Vittorio Colao, the chief executive, will accompany a cost-cutting plan next month with a reduction in revenue and earnings targets.

The shares, down 4.05p at 120.6p, were also hit by a call from Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, for a big cut in the cost of sending text messages. Mark James, at Collins Stewart, reiterating “sell” advice with a 108p price target, believes that the proposed cuts from next July would take 5 per cent off the European mobile giant’s profits just as Vodafone’s cash is being gobbled up by expansion in Turkey and India.

Robin Bienenstock, at Sanford Bernstein, said that Vodafone’s consensus earnings forecasts have been drifting lower in recent weeks and worries whether the group is trying to launch its answer to Google’s Android and the iPhone after the recent hiring of Pieter Knook from Microsoft. Last week she cut her target from 190p to 140p.

The FTSE 100 drifted down 33.1 points to 5,103.1 on light volumes as investors waited to see whether the Paulson rescue package is approved in the United States.

Miners suffered the biggest falls after it emerged that Marius Kloppers, BHP Billiton’s chief, has said he may scrap his bid for Rio Tinto if regulators insist on big asset sales. Rio Tinto lost 31p to £39.92 and BHP rose 5p to £14.40, further widening the discount to its offer price.

Anglo American fell 128p to £20.08 after ING downgraded its rating, although keeping it a buy. It warned that earnings were likely to be hit by the collapse in platinum prices as global demand for cars, which use the metal in exhaust catalysts, is drying up. It said the company appears to have paid “top dollar” for several large-scale projects.

Vedanta Resources lost 103p to £14.24 after its chairman Anil Agarwal bowed to pressure from activist hedge fund TCI and scrapped a plan to buy out it and other minorities in its Sterlite Industries unit.

Bradford & Bingley added ¼p to 25p in reaction to its deal to stop buying sub-prime mortgages from GMAC but analysts said this would not solve the problem of its existing borrowers falling behind on their repayments. It might have to follow Northern Rock in some kind of state rescue. Jonathan Pierce, of Credit Suisse, said: “It is the presence of a scenario in which equity holders receive nothing that leaves us very cautious on B&B.”

A similar fate awaits Taylor Wimpey, up 2p at 47½p, according to KBC Peel Hunt’s Robin Hardy, who said banks and US bond holders may refuse to roll over loans when they are due in the new year, let the builder go bust and recover their money from the administrator’s sale of its £4 billion land bank.

JD Wetherspoon lost 22½p to 270½p after Goldman Sachs predicted that the pub group’s November trading statement would disappoint with costs rising faster than sales.

New York: Wall Street was tense after Warren Buffett’s decision to invest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. The credit markets showed added strain as investors awaited news about the US Government’s bank rescue plans. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 29.00 to close at 10,825.20.

Explore Markets

• United States

• Europe

• Japan

• China

• Russia

• The Gulf

• India

• Africa

Times Recommends

• Gazprom brands Ukraine 'a barbarian' in gas row
• Services sector raises fears over UK jobless
• Retailers surge as profits survive sales plunge