The FTSE 100 fell on Thursday despite the latest efforts from the Bank of England to stimulate the UK economy.
The FTSE 100 was down 0.91% at 6,196 shortly after lunch time on Thursday.
The Bank of England kept rates on hold but announced an additional £100bn in asset purchases to help support the UK economy.
“The Bank of England, as widely expected, increased the size of its quantitative easing program by £100bn to £745bn and a further top up is quite likely later in the summer,” said Rupert Thompson, Chief Investment Officer at Kingswood.
“While the Bank has been looking into the possibility of pushing rates into negative territory, this would be a move of last resort and only be implemented if the economic recovery now starting to get underway runs into problems later in the year.”
The move from the Bank of England comes days after the Federal Reserve also unveiled their latest stimulus measures in the form of corporate bond purchases.
Despite the wave of fresh liquidity being injected into the global financial markets, equities failed to drive higher as concerns lingered around the longer term recovery of the global economy.
“For all the optimism that central bank and government stimulus will help alleviate more permanent economic scarring, there is rising concern that any recovery is likely to be less V-shaped and more a long U-shaped type of rebound,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.
Taylor Wimpey was one of the biggest fallers on Thursday after the house builder raised £515m through a placing.
Pete Redfern, Chief Executive of Taylor Wimpey said the capital raising was to “enable [Taylor Wimpey] to take advantage of these near term opportunities. These investments will support sustainable future growth and deliver enhanced, long term value to shareholders.”
Carnival led the FTSE 100’s declines, falling 8%, after it said losses were larger than previously thought.
