Panicked investors sought refuge in the safe havens of gold and government bonds on Thursday as a fresh spasm of global selling sent share prices crashing in Asia, Europe and North America.
Banks and companies exposed to lower commodity prices were among the biggest losers in London, where the FTSE 100 Index fell by 135 points, a drop of more than 2%. An index of Britain’s banks fell to levels not seen since the depths of the post-Lehman Brothers recession in early 2009.
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London’s fall, which wiped £35bn off the value of the FTSE 100, was part of a global rout that began in Tokyo, spread to the major bourses of Europe and then to Wall Street, further unsettled by another drop in oil prices and news of a regulatory investigation into the affairs of aircraft manufacturer Boeing.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 255 points, or 1.6%, to 15660. The S&P 500 fell 1.2% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.4%. All three had bounced back late in the day from sharper falls but, again, financial stocks were big losers. Financial shares in the S&P have lost roughly 18% so far this year.
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