MARKET REPORT

LONDON’S FTSE 100 Index has suffered its biggest one-day fall since 1987 with more than £160bn wiped off the value of blue chip stocks amid Covid-19 carnage on global markets.

The top flight plummeted 10.9%, or 639.04 points, to 5237.48, marking its biggest fall since October 20 1987, the day after Black Monday.

The drop also took the FTSE 100 down to its lowest level since 2011.

Across Europe, the Stoxx Europe 600, German’s Dax and the Cac 40 in France suffered their biggest ever one-day losses, with the latter two down 12% each.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 8% lower around the time of close in London.

Investors were left disappointed after the ECB failed to cut its deposit rate, though it launched a package including unleashing another up to another €120bn (£107bn) of quantitative easing.

In currency markets, the pound also came under pressure, slumping 1.8% to 1.26 US dollars and 0.9% to 1.13 euros.

Travel related stocks and airlines were not surprisingly among the worst impacted in the equity free-fall, following Mr Trump’s travel ban.

Tour operator was 17% lower, down 79.7p at 385.2p, while owner

dropped 16% or 62.8p to 334.1p and was off 14% or 125.8p to 799.2p.

and were also high up on the biggest casualty list, plunging 37.7p to 182.9p and 177.2p to 884.8p respectively.

The biggest FTSE fallers were down 286.8p to 1234.4p, off 43.9p to 203.4p, 9.4p weaker at 43.6p and down 277.5p to 1289.

There were no risers.