Markets fall as retailers ring alarm over US economy
Fears about rising prices and slowing economies have spread to UK and European stock markets following sharp falls in the US and Asia.
The FTSE 100 index of leading companies dropped 1.5% in early trading while the main stock markets in France and Germany also declined. On Wednesday, US shares recorded their biggest one-day drop since the early days of the Covid pandemic in 2020.Countries are also grappling with steep rises in inflation - the UK's reached a 40-year high of 9% in April - and there are concerns that some economies are heading for a slowdown as interest rates are increased in an attempt to counter price rises.
"A red wall of worry has built up across financial markets with investors increasingly nervous that economies are set to career into recession," said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. In morning trade the FTSE 100 fell 113.57 points to 7,324.52, while France's Cac-40 index and Germany's Dax tumbled by 1.8% and 1.9% respectively.That came after the S&P 500 index in the US, which tracks shares of a wide swathe of America's biggest companies, plunged more than 4% on Wednesday and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 3.5%.
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