{"id":4204,"date":"2013-05-25T14:26:43","date_gmt":"2013-05-25T14:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disnaija.com\/nigerian-newspapers\/uks-ftse-suffers-biggest-single-drop\/"},"modified":"2013-05-25T14:26:43","modified_gmt":"2013-05-25T14:26:43","slug":"uks-ftse-suffers-biggest-single-drop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/uks-ftse-suffers-biggest-single-drop\/","title":{"rendered":"UK\u2019s FTSE suffers biggest single drop"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/b>Britain\u2019s FTSE 100 share index suffered its biggest one-day drop in a year on Thursday, knocked off historic peaks by weak economic data and signs the United States Federal Reserve could soon taper its stimulus program.<\/p>\n

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said late on Wednesday the central bank could scale back quantitative easing in coming months if economic momentum was maintained, thus threatening the removal of the stimulus which has been a key driver of the year-long equity market rally.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/i> reports that news of a slowdown in factory activity in China, a top market for Britain\u2019s heavyweight miners, gave investors a further excuse to take profits.<\/p>\n

The FTSE 100 fell by 143.48 points, or 2.1 per cent, to 6,696.79, retreating from Wednesday\u2019s 13-year peak of 6,875.62 and suffering its biggest one-day drop since last May.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the storming start we\u2019ve had to the year, a bit of profit taking at some point was inevitable.<\/p>\n

Markets have reached year end levels that most people had penciled in and most institutional investors don\u2019t have a great deal of confidence in this market, nobody is in this for the long haul,\u201d said Mike Ingram, market analyst at BGC Partners.<\/p>\n

Of the 100 blue chips, 94 closed lower – the highest number of fallers since September, according to Datastream.<\/p>\n

There was some buying into the dip towards the end of the session, but the move was more muted than in previous falls.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would need to see several hundred points off the index before you can think about putting money in,\u201d said Andrew Feldhaus, investment manager at Redmayne Bentley.<\/p>\n

Smaller caps, which tend to be more focused on company specific factors than macro news, fared a bit better, with the FTSE Small Caps index down by 1.7 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the smaller companies in the UK are still very under-owned, some of them continue to trade well irrespective of the economy at large and, if they\u2019ve got a strong balance sheet, whilst their share price might go down, hopefully after it all settles down they will go back up again because they are already cheap,\u201d said Gervais Williams, managing director at Miton Group.<\/p>\n

Within the bigger stocks, investors focused on companies with strong dividends. United Utilities was one of the few gainers, up by 0.8 per cent, after unveiling in-line full-year results and increasing its payout to shareholders.<\/p>\n

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Source: Punch Newspaper<\/p>\n

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