FTSE down after bank holiday weekend
Britain’s biggest companies suffered a tortuous return from the bank holiday weekend today as the FTSE 100 Index was brought to its knees.
Renewed fears about the timing of an economic recovery sent the Footsie, which tracks the value of blue-chip firms, down by 120 points at one stage.
Heavy losses on Wall Street in the United States yesterday fuelled investors’ nerves with all but six of the top 100 firms seeing their share price slide.
Banking, pharmaceutical and oil stocks all fell back and there was yet more gloom for mobile phone giant Vodafone.
The heavyweight fell by as much as 5% in early trading as investors punished it for lowering its growth prospects in Germany and Italy on Friday.
The Footsie had recovered some of its poise by midday ahead of a key session in the US this afternoon and was down 82.5 points at 5,120.6.
But analysts said the markets were likely to remain brittle until a clearer picture of an improving worldwide economy emerges.
Jeremy Batstone, head of research at NatWest Stockbrokers, said the benefits of last year’s interest rate reductions had now worked through the market.
He added: ‘‘There are concerns about the timing of an economic recovery and by extension the timing of an upturn in corporate profitability.’’
Peter Cogliatti, head of foreign sales at Williams de Broe, added that profit taking was contributing to today’s slide.
The banks were falling back from their recent all-time highs with Royal Bank of Scotland down 2%, matching a slip by Lloyds TSB.
He added: ‘‘There’s not a huge amount of selling but the buyers have dried up.’’
The Footsie last closed below 5,120 on February 28. Its highest close since the turn of the year was 5,323.8 on January 4.
