Headline shares tumbled to heavy losses in midday trade, markets spooked by renewed signs of weakness in the Eurozone sparked by the weekend bank bailout in Spain, and with commodity prices sliding. At high noon, the FTSE100 was down 121.2 points at 4,948.41 with the FTSE250 off 271 points at 9,206.56 and the FTSE Smallcaps 91.74 points lower at 2,673.86.
NEW YORK
Tension in Korea and European banking doubts weighed heavily on US stock futures today, putting the Dow 10,000 level in danger. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slumped 218 points at 9,825, S&P500 futures dropped 25 points to 1,046 and Nasdaq 100 futures shed 41.75 points at 1,770.7.
LONDON MARKETS
London markets were a sea of red this morning, with all but three FTSE100 constituents negative at high noon, as markets reacted nervously to new signs of financial weakness in Europe, as the Euro tumbled, the fall triggered by the latest in bank bail-outs in Spain. News that UK GDP was revised upwards made no impact.
Financials: Financial issues suffered heavy falls, with Lloyds the weakest of the blue chips at midday, off 4.57p at 50.9p. Royal Bank Of Scotland Group Plc (LON:RBS) shed 2.96p at 42.41p and Barclays (LON:BARC) tumbled 16.75p at 284.1p. Continuing doubts over its proposed acquisition of AIA pulled Prudential (LON:PRU) farther into the red, the insurer tumbling 11p at 519p.
Energy & Resource Stocks: Tumbling commodity prices hit the mining community, with ENRC the biggest sector casualty, slumping 64.5p at 910.5p. Xstrata Plc (LON:XTA) fell 44.6p at 912.4p and Vedanta dropped 134p at 2,063p. Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) and BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) were under additional pressure as their opposition to the Australian supertax grew, the shares down 114.5p at 2,845p and 54p at 1,759.5p, respectively. The double-whammy of falling crude prices and the rising cost of the oil spillage problems in the Gulf of Mexico forced BP (LON:BP.) down 10.7p at 482.3p, while Shell slid 24.5p at 1,689p and BG Group (LON:BG.) lost 23.4p at 980.6p. Crude oil traded at $67.62 a barrel on Nymex.
Retail: A cautious outlook from Marks & Spencer Group (LON:MKS)& as it revealed slightly better than expected annual profits added to the general market pressures and pulled the shares down 6.5p at 327p. Supermarket operators suffered on the read across, with Tesco (LON:TSCO) off 8.3p…
