It may have been Black Friday on the other side of the Atlantic, but it was also a pretty accurate description of the Square Mile's mood today, although red was the colour dominating trading screens yet again.
While US shoppers enjoyed a spot of post-Thanksgiving bargain-hunting, there was little buying on the FTSE 100, which fell 30.46 points to 5097.11 as it stretched its losing streak to a 10th session.
"It's all pretty miserable," was the succinct analysis of one dealer, with the index's woeful run, its worst for almost nine years, having seen it shed more than 450 points. This leaves it at a seven-week low.
Rising Italian bond yields was doing much of the damage, while German chancellor Angela Merkel's insistence that the creation of eurobonds was not an option didn't help matters.
It was the miners' turn to suffer the worst of the sell-off, with Antofagasta and Kazakhmys retreating 34p to 1001p and 20p to 787p.
The blue-chip stocks bucking the trend were largely of the defensive variety, including utility National Grid, which topped the leaderboard after climbing 8p to 627.75p.
The news it had struck a deal to purchase the South African cleaning specialist Supercare meant there was some appetite for Compass, with the world's largest caterer, boosted by upgrades yesterday from S&P and Morgan Stanley, ticking up 6.5p to 552p.
After yet another profits warning, on the high street - this time from Blacks Leisure, which slumped 1p to 3.38p on the fledgling index - SuperGroup was living up to its SuperDroop nickname again on the FTSE 250, with the fashion brand sliding 27.4p to 448.65p.
Similarly, Mothercare was 3.6p weaker at 146.45p in spite of rumours yesterday claiming it could be a takeover target either for private equity or an unnamed Indian retailer.
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Dixons Retail, however, was still rising following the release of the electrical chain's interim figures yesterday. The group advanced 0.45p to 10.39p as Nomura's Christopher Walker praised its management for "positioning the business ahead of any consumer recovery".
Down among the AIM-listed oil explorers, punters were pulling out of Aurelian Oil & Gas, down 0.75p to 17.5p, and Gulf Keystone Petroleum, down 11.5p to 157p, despite both being boosted by vague bid whispers yesterday.
Tiddler Ascent Resources, meanwhile, added 50%, or 0.82p, to 2.48p, after the Europe-focused energy group announced a successful test on one of its Slovenian wells.
