Times Online- London’s leading blue-chip stocks sank to levels not seen in nearly a year today, on the back of heavy selling overnight in the United States and Asia after the credit crunch sparked fresh concern.
The benchmark FTSE 100 index lost 167.6 points, or 2.7 per cent, to 5,941.7 in mid-morning deals, taking it below the 6,000 level for the first time since last October.
Today’s fall means that the index, which measures changes in the value of the country’s 100 largest companies, has lost nearly 11.5 per cent of its value in the space of a month.
The magnitude of the fall is likely to raise fresh fears of a prolonged bear market, the description for a market in which share prices are falling.
