LONDON: Britain’s FTSE 100 touched a more than one-month low on Friday and logged its sharpest drop since October 2023 for a week filled with a raft of central bank policy decisions.
The FTSE 100 dropped 0.3%, hitting its lowest since Nov. 13, though the mid-cap FTSE 250 was up 0.3%, after hitting a near one-month low earlier in the day.
Financial companies were the biggest weights on the benchmark index, with banks off 0.5% and non-life insurers down 0.7%. Energy companies lost 0.3%, tracking oil prices that fell on demand growth concerns.
Real estate investment trusts rose 1.2% to lead sectoral gains, followed by precious metal miners after the bullion’s price rose over 1%.
British equities started the day on a weaker note, tracking losses in their European peers that got knocked down by US President-elect Donald Trump’s comments about potential tariffs on the European Union and fears of a US government shutdown after a Trump-backed spending bill failed in the House of Representatives.
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