FTSE 100 down 1% under 5,000

Friday 2nd October 2009

The FTSE 100 ended the week under the 5,000 mark today with widespread losses as the feeling spreads the markets have been suffering from false optimism.

The index closed Friday down 1.17 per cent to 4,998.70 – for the first time since mid September.

Leading the drops was Royal Bank of Scotland – down 7.73 per cent to 46.64p.

The appointment of two new non-executive directors to the RBS board – in the form of the Aviva finance director Philip Scott and former Coca-Cola executive Penny Hughes – failed to bolster the firm as concerns over the drawn out process of the lender's participation in the government asset insurance scheme dragged on.

Lloyds Banking similarly looking for ways to reduce exposure to the asset protection scheme was down 4.51 per cent to 94.75p.

Miner Kazakhmys was down 4.87 per cent, Intercontinental Hotels fell 4.10 per cent and Rentokil Initial fell 3.86 per cent.

SABMiller was the only stock on the FTSE 100 to rise over one per cent.

G4S rose 0.96 per cent and ICAP gained 0.67 per cent.

In the US, the Dow Jones was down 0.18 per cent despite disappointing labour statistics at 12:08 EDT (17:08 BST), while the S&P 500 fell 0.27 per cent in Chicago as it was revealed the city had not won the right to hold the Olympics.

In Europe today, the Dax was down 1.42 per cent and Cac40 fell 1.82 per cent.

On the currency markets, sterling was down 0.41 per cent against the dollar to $1.5889 and down 0.79 per cent against the euro to €1.0882.

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