FTSE slams into reverse falling 5.3% after Boris Johnson reveals he has coronavirus
Britain’s stock market slammed into reverse after three days of gains as Boris Johnson revealed he has coronavirus.
The FTSE100 index fell 5.3 per cent, or 305.4 points, to 5510.33 yesterday having jumped 16.5 per cent between Tuesday morning and Thursday evening.
The sell-off was echoed around the world, although sterling continued its climb against the dollar, rising towards £1.24 having crashed to a 35-year low below $1.15 last week.
The FTSE100 index fell 5.3 per cent, or 305.4 points, to 5510.33 yesterday after Boris Johnson revealed he has coronavirus
Having opened lower, shares fell further after Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock tested positive for Covid-19.
The slump came as Thursday’s dire unemployment figures from the US continued to weigh on sentiment and the International Monetary Fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, warned that ‘we have entered a recession as bad or worse than in 2009’.
But investment veteran Anthony Bolton, a star stock-picker of the 1990s and 2000s, said he was beginning to invest in a personal capacity again after avoiding the stock market for the past year.
The 70-year-old told the Financial Times that coronavirus had ‘stopped the party’ in terms of soaring equities valuations, and added: ‘At these prices there are really interesting opportunities.’
Investors had been hoping that markets had got over the worst of the panic after the FTSE100 climbed 16.5 per cent over three successive days.
But yesterday’s slide showed more pain may yet be on the horizon for savers. Georgieva said: ‘It is now clear that we have entered a recession as bad or worse than in 2009. ‘We too predict a recovery in 2021.
But only if we succeed with containing the virus everywhere and prevent liquidity problems from becoming a solvency issue.’