pedestrians leave and enter the london stock exchange in london britain august 15 2017 reutersneil hallfile photo aug 18 reuters  londons ftse 100 fell on wednesday with financial and energy stocks leading the decline although cooling inflation helped limit losses by allaying concerns that the bank of england could pull back its asset purchases sooner than expected the bluechip ftse 100 ftse dropped 02 with miner bhp group bhpbl oil majors royal dutch shell rdsal and bp bpl and insurer prudential prul among the top drags british inflation fell to the bank of englands 2 target in july in an unexpectedly sharp slowdown that economists said was most likely a blip as the reopening of the economy after lockdown drives prices higher still inflation is considerably higher than the 04 level seen in february read more the ftse 100 has gained nearly 11 so far this year however it has been stuck near the 7100 level since may weighed down by the possibility of higher inflation as the economy reopens and risks around a global spike in coronavirus infections the uks inflation could just as easily move higher probably driven by the delayed economic reopening that was deferred from june said michael hewson chief market analyst at cmc markets hewson also noted a lot of retailers are nudging prices higher as they look to claw back revenue lost from lockdowns while the wage growth is much higher than the headline cpi number  all signs that inflation could go up persimmon psnl britains no 2 homebuilder fell 21 to the bottom of the ftse 100 even as it said its current forward sales were up about 9 from prepandemic levels read more british insurer mg plc mngl slipped 02 after it said it would buy financial advice provider sandringham financial partners in a deal that would add assets worth more than 25 billion pounds to mg reporting by shashank nayar in bengaluru editing by uttareshv and subhranshu sahu