FTSE 100 heads down

The FTSE 100 continued its downward march from yesterday falling 0.39 per cent – after a brief early pyrrhic fillip.

Yesterday the index of top 100 firms fell 2.6 per cent and New York followed suit over night with the Dow Jones and Nasdaq both falling three per cent.

On the Dow Jones no firms recorded share price rises.

In London at 9:15 BST the only gains continued to come from commodity stocks.

Cairn Energy rose 4.73 per cent, BG Group was up 1.59 per cent and BHP Billiton rose 1.49 per cent.

Tullow Oil and Royal Dutch Shell 'B' rose 1.4 per cent and 0.98 per cent respectively.

The biggest faller was HBOS – falling 4.89 per cent.

London Stock Exchange Group fell 4.77 per cent, Thompson Reuters slipped 4.56 per cent, Carnival was down 3.78 per cent and Invensys dropped 3.58 per cent.

In Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng is down 1.84 per cent and the Nikkei in Tokyo is down 2.01 per cent.

In Europe, the Cac 40 and Dax are down 1.33 per cent and 1.35 per cent respectively.