More misery on the markets

NEWS Markets in Europe and New York continued to slide today in the wake of last week's attacks on the US and the uncertainty surrounding Washington's expected retaliation. By 16:00(BST), London's FTSE 100 had fallen to a four-year low of 4,542 points, down nearly four per cent from yesterday's close. Marconi, which is due to exit the FTSE 100 at the end of the week, took a particular battering and dropped 9.92 per cent to 22.97p. The FTSE Eurotop 300 index was down 2.7 per cent to 1,039.29, with only a few stocks bucking the trend. SAP was up two per cent to E102.50 and Deutsche Telekom up 1.91 per cent to E102.40 by mid afternoon. Wall Street dropped sharply after Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, made a statement to the US Senate. He said last week's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon will have short-term effects on the US economy, but added that in the long term the economy should hold up. He said the US economy has become "increasingly resilient to shock". Nevertheless, by 16:00(BST) the Standard and Poor index had dropped 2.19 per cent to 993.8 and the Dow Jones index had slipped 2.95 per cent to 8501.03. Nasdaq was down 1.83 per cent to 1,499.78. Meanwhile, stocks in computer virus firms rallied briefly because of the scare caused by the new email worm Nimda. Symantec shares were up nearly four per cent to $36.85 at one stage, before dropping below yesterday's close to $36.58 at 16:00(BST).