Analysts said big technology stocks and cyclical issues appeared to be the weakest sectors.

Q. What are the weakest sectors?

All this indicates that consumers are still spending while the nation's weakest sector, manufacturing, appears to be rebounding.

Brokerage houses joined technology and drugs among the weakest sectors.

One of the weakest sectors was technology, which had been the market leader but was faced yesterday with continued profit taking.

It was a token of the unexpected; the cry of one who prepared a thrust into the weakest sector of the enemy's lines.

"They are limited in what they can do to improve capital spending, and that's the weakest sector," he said.

Manufacturing and oil and gas exploration were among the weakest sectors.

The weakest sector is the residential-apartment market, where price discounting and subsidised financing are on the increase.

All of these austerity measures hit wage-earners and the weakest sectors of society.