Equity markets sank around the world on Wednesday as a string of poor economic data combined with fears over Brexit to shake the confidence out of markets.
The FTSE 100 was down over 190 point or 2.6% to 7161 in afternoon trade which culminated in the worst start to October since 2014.
A series of poor global economic date raised fears companies were going to struggle through earnings season.
“It’s going to be a tough season and the most important thing will be how the companies view going into Q4 and the early outlook for 2020, which is shaping up to be a tough year for markets and corporates,” said Neil Campling, analyst at Mirabaud Securities.
The market has digested a broad set of manufacturing data which has pointed to to deterioration economic activity and could possibly signal wider economic strife.
UK #construction PMI at 43.1 in September – that’s territory consistent with a sharp contraction in output. Decline in new work volumes also point to a weak end of year – despite the efforts of the public sector balance sheet to prop up demand
— Simon French (@shjfrench) October 2, 2019
Compounding fears over the UK economy, PM Johnson delivered a speech that promised changes to the current Brexit deal that if were not met would lead to a No-deal Brexit 31st October.
Tesco were unchanged after they announced their CEO would be stepping down next year. He had previously been seen as the person that took a struggling Tesco and turned them around but a wider slow down in the sector tarnished initial success.
“Retail bosses are like football managers, a handful of names always moving around the top jobs, notching maybe a season or two of success before inevitably failure catches up with them.” wrote Markets.com analyst Neil Wilson on the departure of Tesco’s boss.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were Kingfisher (-6.8%), Hargreaves Lansdown (-5.9%) and AB Foods (-5.1%) in late afternoon London trade.
