Brexit worries send pound plummeting

The apparent unravelling of the prospect of any Brexit deal emerging before October 31 sent the pound plummeting yesterday.

But the weakness against both the euro and the dollar once again helped the FTSE 100 to avoid significant falls felt elsewhere in Europe.

The leading London index closed out the day down 54.73 points at 7,143.15 – a fall of 0.76% – compared with a 1.1% fall on Germany’s Dax and a 1.2% fall on the Paris Cac.

Connor Campbell, financial analyst at SpreadEx, said: “The FTSE managed to keep its losses down... because the pound spent the day staring down the barrel of a no-deal Brexit.

“Talks between the UK and EU seem to have struck a new low, with a No 10 source labelling the chances of an agreement ‘essentially impossible’ following a call between Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel.”

The pound fell 0.7% against the dollar to 1.2205 and was down 0.5% against the euro at 1.1143.

A barrel of Brent crude oil also fell 0.8% to 57.89 dollars as fears of a global slowdown continued.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Polymetal, up 31.5p to 1,175p, Fresnillo, up 14p at 688.8p, Coca-Cola HBC, up 27p at 2,573p, Smurfit Kappa, up 20p at 2,444p, and Phoenix Group, up 5.2p at 664.2p.

The biggest fallers were the London Stock Exchange Group, down 432p at 7,020p, Whitbread, down 162p at 3,988p, Flutter Entertainment, down 286p at 7,876p, Tesco, down 7.2p at 229.8p, and NMC Health, down 76p at 2,495p.