London’s blue chip stocks ended the day lower on a difficult day for equities globally, with most major indices falling further as the day went on.
“Investors continue to seize upon any excuse to get out of equity markets,” Chris Beauchamp at IG said.
A mass sell-off in China saw the Shanghai Composite ease 8.5%, its biggest fall since 2007, on the back of disappointing data on Friday.
It showed China industrial profits fell 0.3% in June after a year-on-year gain of 0.6% last month.
Beauchamp said: “ A few days of quiet in those markets had given us a false sense of security, with an entirely unwarranted perception that the problem of markets going down as well as up had been fixed.”
Global markets struggled, with the French Cac40 and the German Dax the losing 2.6% each to 4,927 and 11,056 respectively.
In the US, the Nasdaq fell furthest, easing 0.8% while the Dow Jones and S&P 500 were also in the red.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 Index shed 74 points, or 1.1% to 6,505 led lower by Pearson (LON:PSON).
The company followed up its sale of the Financial Times by announcing the planned disposal of its 50% stake in news magazine The Economist. Shares eased 4.76% to 1,161p.
Also lower was Alton Towers and Legoland owner Merlin Entertainment (LON:MERL) as it warned profits this year will be up to £47mln lower than expected.
The drop is due to the accident on the Smiler roller-coaster at Alton Towers last month which left five people seriously injured and shut the theme park for five days. Shares dropped 3.9% to 406p.
Of the few risers, Reckitt Benckiser (LON:RB. led the way, gaining 1.44% to 5,993p.
It kicked off the flurry of updates with news of a 5% rise in first half net revenue, helped by demand for influenza treatments.
In small caps, Metminco (LON:MNC) said it will produce over 765,000 tonnes of copper and generate US$2.7bn in earnings over 17 years from the Los Calatos project in Southern Peru after it released the results of the latest mining study at the project. Shares climbed 10% to 0.22p.
Meanwhile, React Energy (LON:REAC) saw its shares resume trading today, having been suspended since December, after it raised £1mln through a secured facility loan and had €5.7mln of debt wiped off in return for 37mln new shares. Shares dropped 36% to 7p.