RAMSEY CROOKALL

20th  October 2011

Evening Report

The FTSE 100 index closed down 1.2%. Rumors that this weekend’s summit of European Union leaders in Brussels may be postponed dampened sentiment. German and French officials reportedly disagree about how to boost the firepower of the European Financial Stability Facility, the euro-zone rescue fund.

Insurance stocks were among the top losers in London, with Aviva down 4.45% and Prudential PLC down 3.56%.

Banking shares also sold off, tracking declines in the broader European financial sector, as investors worried about the euro-zone debt crisis. Barclays PLC and Lloyds Banking Group PLC each dropped nearly 4%.

G4S, which earlier this week made a £5.2bn bid for office cleaning group ISS, saw early gains fall back to less than 3%, having risen almost 10% earlier today from a two-year low, as investors kept their fingers crossed that stock had been oversold. The stock dipped after the debt-fuelled purchase was met with resistance from Parvus Asset Management, one of its biggest investors, which has claimed the deal is too risky to pursue. The shares closed up 3.16%

IMI was the biggest faller among the top-share's constituents, suffering after Goldman Sachs cut its target price from 1450p to 1320p. The shares closed down 5.5%

Miners dragged the index lower as copper, gold and silver all fell. Kazakhmys, Xstrata and Eurasian Natural Resources Corp lost at least 3% of their value.

THE FTSE 100  closed                   Down         65         @         5384 THE DOW JONES at 16:40                 Down         35        @         11469            NASDAQ COMP at 16:40                   Down         31         @         2573              Exchange Rates

GBP – USD              1.5727 GBP - EURO             1.1482