FTSE 100 slides 2.75%
Thursday 21st May 2009, 5:26PM BST.
The FTSE 100 slumped 2.75 per cent to close at 4,345.47 after Standard & Poor’s downgraded the outlook for the UK from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’.
After a sustained rally, financial and mining stocks reversed and started to fall, leading the index down following the pessimistic forecast from the credit rating agency.
Miner Kazakhmys led the decline, falling 9.56 per cent, followed by a 9.55 per cent drop in Cable and Wireless, while Eurasian Natural Resources was down by 9.27 per cent.
A handful of stocks were left trading above yesterday’s prices, including Tullow Oil, up 3.59 per cent, Lonmin, up 0.95 per cent, and GlaxoSmithKline, up by 0.47 per cent.
Anthony Grech, market strategist for IG Index, said: “With the scheduled release of key GDP figures in the UK tomorrow, it will be very interesting to see how the markets react before the bank holiday weekend.
“With a pretty major dent in recent gains seen today, investors will be hoping that the 4300 mark may act as something of a springboard and propel the market back up to recent highs.
“But after some choppy and directionless performances in the run up to this major sell off, there is a sense among traders that we may see the markets enter a holding pattern before a new direction is found for the medium term.”
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