BRITAIN'S top shares recorded a three-week closing low yesterday as disappointing results from top US banks and more signs of fiscal tightening in China hurt banking and commodity stocks.
The FTSE-100 index closed down 92.34 points, or 1.7%, at 5420.80 - the lowest closing level since December 31, 2009. It posted its biggest one-day fall in a month. The index is up 57% from its six- year trough hit in March 2009.
Banks came under pressure as fourth-quarter earnings from Bank of America and Morgan Stanley added to fears that the recent banking crisis is far from over.
Citigroup and JP Morgan have also disappointed markets with their figures in the last few days.
HSBC, Barclays, Standard Chartered, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group fell between 0.9% and 3.6%.
replica balenciaga handbags"Poor earnings have increased the nervousness among investors that the toxic loan crisis could continue to impact bank earnings in 2010," said Joshua Raymond, market strategist at City Index.
"The speculation from China that they have made another move to cool excessive growth is a deep concern for the heavyweight miners and energy firms," he added.
Miners were hit after sources in China said authorities had instructed major banks to stop lending for the rest of January after they went on a lending spree earlier in the month, sending stocks in the region sharply lower.
Fendi Replica Handbags A 2.4% to 4.2% fall in key base metals prices also hurt mining shares, while energy shares tracked a 2% drop in crude oil prices.
Rio Tinto, Xstrata, Lonmin, Anglo American, Kazakhmys and BHP Billiton dropped between 3.6% and 6.2%.
Among energy shares, Tullow Oil, Cairn Energy, BG Group, Royal Dutch Shell and BP shed between 1.2% and 2.9%.
brochure printing"Considering all the news is quite bad, 100 points off the Footsie is not exactly disastrous stuff. Equities are the one area that will take a hit but the returns are still good," said Simon Denham, managing director at Capital Spreads.
Among individual fallers, Imperial Tobacco was the top blue-chip loser, down 3.4%, after the stock went ex-dividend yesterday, taking 2.05 points off the blue-chip index.
Shire topped a truncated list of Footsie risers, gaining 2.6%, boosted by an upgrade to "overweight" from "neutral" by JP Morgan. - Reuters
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