Oct 10 (Reuters) - UK's blue-chip stock index fell for a fourth consecutive session on Monday, amid a wider risk-off sentiment triggered by massive explosions that shook the Ukrainian capital and other cities.

The FTSE 100 index (.FTSE) fell 0.5% by 0720 GMT, while the domestically focussed midcap FTSE 250 index (.FTMC) dropped 0.8%.

The attacks were the most intense to hit Kyiv, in apparent Russian revenge strikes after President Vladimir Putin declared an explosion on the bridge to Crimea to be a terrorist attack. 

Airlines were among the top decliners, with shares of British Airways-operator IAG (ICAG.L), Wizz Air (WIZZ.L) and easyJet (EZJ.L) down between 2.3% and 4.1%.

British power companies Centrica (CNA.L), SSE (SSE.L) and Drax (DRX.L) fell more than 3% each after the Financial Times reported the UK government was pressing ahead with plans to cap revenues of renewable electricity generators.

The widespread selling came even as the Bank of England moved to ease concerns about the expiry of its emergency programme at the end of this week to calm turmoil in the government bond market, including a doubling of the maximum size of its planned debt buy-back on Monday. read more

Among gainers, student housing provider Unite Group (UTG.L) rose 3.2% after providing a trading update.

DS Smith (SMDS.L) jumped 7.9% after the card board maker forecast overall annual performance ahead of its expectations, helped by strong revenue growth and cost-cuts. 


(Source : Reuters) , all rights reserved by original source.