Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as global selloff wipes £44bn off London’s blue-chip index
- Latest: FTSE 100 falls 2.34%, worst session in two months
- £44bn wiped off blue-chip index
- Wall Street tumbles – Dow down 700 points
- BoE’s Haskel says too early to tighten policy despite inflation rise
- Pound lowest since April vs US dollar
- Covid-19 cases, growth worries and inflation fears rattle markets
- See all our coronavirus coverage
Stocks are being hammered harder on Wall Street too, where pandemic fears are also rife.
The Dow Jones industrial average is now down 880 points, or 2.5%, at 33,807 points – extending its earlier losses. Energy stock, financials and industrials are all being hit by growth worries.
U.S. stocks fell aggressively Monday on concern a rebound in Covid cases would slow global economic growth. The selling picked up though early afternoon and the Dow Jones Industrial average was headed for its biggest drop of the year.
The Dow dropped 920 points, or 2.7%, exceeding a 2% decline in late January. The S&P 500 fell 2.1% with energy and industrial sectors as the worst performers. The tech-dominated Nasdaq Composite lost 1.5%. The small-cap Russell 2000 briefly dropped into correction territory, falling 10.7% from its 52-week high on March 15.
Sell-off intensifies as the Dow tumbles more than 900 points amid pandemic fears. https://t.co/WEHK1NWEYr pic.twitter.com/Gw6LGbvqgY
The market sell-off intensifies as the Dow tumbles more than 900 points amid pandemic fears. https://t.co/9C8quiJZ3o pic.twitter.com/x5Q6SGiFKj
Here’s Danni Hewson, AJ Bell financial analyst, on today’s market rout:
All last week investors flipped and flopped their way through the maze of contradictory data and declarations but whatever the narrative case numbers don’t lie, and the numbers aren’t good.
“The FTSE 100 has plummeted way below that psychological 7,000 figure with very few of its components managing to stay out of the red zone today.
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Concerns about how robust recovery really is has sent the oil price under $70 a barrel and in marked contrast to the $100 that was being discussed as a real possibility for this summer. The OPEC+ spat resolution will have played a part but Delta is destructive and US markets aren’t immune either.
Investors appear to be flocking to the safe haven of government bonds with yields plummeting to levels last seen back in February and Wall Street has followed the trajectory of European markets.
