London’s blue chip stocks plummeted this morning as a sell-off in China spooked markets worldwide.
The Chinese Securities Index, CSI 300, went limit down at one point, with trading halted after it fell over 9%.
Meanwhile, around 8.5% was wiped from the Shanghai Composite overnight after a raft of worsening economic data in recent days and weeks has prompted overseas investors to pull the plug.
Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers said: “China’s contribution to a potential global slowdown has unsettled markets again this morning, with sellers pushing against an open door, exacerbated by light volumes as the City waits to return to full strength at the end of this holiday month.”
“The latest move by the PBOC saw the central bank announce that local government-managed pension funds will be able to invest in the markets for the first time, in an attempt to pour billions of yuan into an equity market that is currently drowning in losses” Connor Campbell at spread betting firm Spreadex added.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 was more than 2% lower, 135 points, to 6,051 with not a single constituent managing to eke out a gain.
The dramatic sell-off in China hurt the miners this morning as a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy would affect the demand for metal.
Nestling at the bottom of the index was copper miner Glencore (LON:GLEN) which lost 5.3% to 150p, while platinum producer Anglo American (LON:AAL) was next, 5% lower to 696p.
Sitting at the top of the index, but still in the red, was AstraZeneca (LON:AZN), which nabbed Dr Sean Bohen, an executive from Roche subsidiary Genentech, to join as executive vice president of global medicines development and chief medical officer. Shares eased 0.69% lower to 4,026p.
It wasn’t any prettier elsewhere, with only 6 firms on the FTSE 350 managing to make gains.
With Brent Crude and West Texas Intermediate briefly below US$45 and US$40 a barrel respectively, Premier Oil (LON:PMO) was a big faller, losing 5.33% to 97.7p.
In small caps, it wasn’t all doom and gloom, although risers were still hard to come by.
African Potash (LON:AFPO) led the way higher today as it signed its first memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a Zambian fertiliser supply company.
Shares skyrocketed 58% to 1.65p after it announced the first supply deal following the landmark agreement struck earlier this month with Comesa - the free trade union of 20 African countries.
Meanwhile, Poland-focused oiler San Leon Energy (LON:SLE) confirmed a weekend report it had received a bid approach. Shares jumped 13.9% to 60.95p.
At the other end of the spectrum, London’s biggest loser was internet media group Blinkx (LON:BLNX) after it issued a profit warning.
Blinkx, which was spun out of data search group Autonomy, saw shares tank 31% to 18p.