Stocks drop back from 13-year high

Stormy day for equities as FTSE falls by the most in over a year

VOLATILE markets plummeted yesterday, reversing some of the extraordinary, record-breaking gains that have been printed during May.

The FTSE 100 suffered its sharpest one-day drop in a year, closing down 2.1 per cent at 6,696.79.

Allister Heath

It’s time for Britain to embrace the global shale gas bonanza

by Allister Heath
TO say that Britain is slow on the uptake is an understatement of enormous proportions, especially when it comes to our ridiculous energy policy. We were good at tapping into North Sea oil and gas, all those decades ago, but we have been utterly...
CHINA’S manufacturing activity contracted for the first time in seven months in May, causing stock markets to fall sharply in Asia.The HSBC Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to 49.6...
George Osborne is unlikely to adopt the recommendations from the IMF’s David Lipton
THE UK needs to cut business taxes, slash red tape to allow more house building and bring forward infrastructure spending to make sure the recovery takes hold, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)...
Antonio Horta Osorio
LLOYDS surprised markets last night, announcing the sale of £500m of shares in wealth management group St James’ Place. The bank had previously ruled out further sales for a year after selling a...
UK high street/shoppers
SALES in retail grew by a meagre 0.5 per cent in the year between April 2012 and April 2013, according to the Office for National Statistics. The volume of sales actually contracted by 1.3 per cent...
Fruit Shoot
BRITVIC is to close two factories with the loss of up to 400 jobs under new plans to bolster its position as a standalone business as the proposed tie-up with rival AG Barr remains uncertain. New...
Merkel has been top for seven out of ten years
GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel has kept her crown as the world’s most powerful woman for the third year in a row. The Chancellor, who has featured top in seven out of the past ten years that the...
George Soros’s Quantum vehicle led the funding
GEORGE Soros has led a £50m investment in a London-based broadband company that aims to deliver internet speeds 83 times faster than the national average. The investor, who famously made billions...