£150billion wiped off worth of British shares in worst week for FTSE 100 since Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs

More than £150billion has been wiped off the value of Britain’s biggest companies in the worst week on the London stock market for nearly a year.

As war raged in the Middle East, the FTSE 100 index fell another 1.24 per cent to 10,284.75, taking losses since Monday morning to 5.7 per cent.

That wiped £150.1billion off the value of London’s blue-chips – with British Airways owner IAG the worst hit with a loss of 18.6 per cent as flights were cancelled and travel disrupted.

It was the worst week for the Footsie since it fell 7 per cent in the first week of April last year when Donald Trump unleashed his ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs on trading partners around the world.

There were also wild moves on the commodity markets with the price of oil rising above $90 a barrel for the first time since April 2024 to over $92 – taking gains for the week to 27 per cent.

And ructions on the bond markets saw the yield on the UK’s ten-year gilts – a key measure of government borrowing costs – soaring to 4.73 per cent.

That was up from 4.23 per cent at the end of last week – with UK yields rising more sharply than any other European nation.

Analysts warned the parlous state of the nation’s finances has left the UK vulnerable to soaring energy prices and an inflation shock given the weakness of the economy.

Hopes of interest rate cuts this spring have all-but evaporated with investors putting the chances of any reduction at all this year at less than 50-50.

Barry O’Dwyer, the boss of pensions and investment firm Royal London, warned the crisis could tip Britain into recession.

And Saad al-Kaabi, the energy minister of Qatar, said the war risked pushing oil to $150 a barrel and could ‘bring down the economies of the world’.

Investor anxiety was further stoked by renewed concerns over the health of the US economy after figures showed 92,000 jobs were lost last month and unemployment has hit 4.4 per cent.

Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said the jobs figures ‘are quite possibly the worst situation that could have been imagined in a week when a new Middle East war lit a fire under oil prices’.

‘It’s hard to imagine a worse time for energy prices to start surging,’ he added. 

The losses on the stock market in London were echoed around the world with the main benchmark in Germany down 1.13 per cent and the Cac index falling 0.65 per cent in Paris. Wall Street was also lower in early trading. 

‘It has been another tough day for global equity markets. The rush for the exits that began on Monday has accelerated over the last 48 hours, on the realisation that there is unlikely to be a quick end to the war in the Middle East.’

Lindsay James, investment strategist at Quilter, said: ‘The warning from Qatar’s energy minister reflects very real concerns about the risk of prolonged disruption to energy supplies from the Gulf, although a lengthy halt to all Gulf oil and gas production remains an extreme scenario. 

‘Nonetheless, the concerns he raises are understandable. With production in Qatar already halted following recent attacks on key facilities, there is clear market anxiety about further damage to infrastructure in the region and the ability of exporters to quickly resume output.’