Going into the closing stages of trading, the UK’s leading index looks set to finish below the psychologically-important 4,000 level for the first time this year.

The FTSE has spent the day firmly on the back foot after plummeting to around the 3920 mark on opening. Singling out a particularly hard-hit sector is not easy, and most stocks have been in the red all day; nevertheless, in the UK, miners bore the brunt of the wide-scale sell off, with Anglo American (14.4%), Kazakhmys (7.5%) and Rio Tinto (7.2%) all posting big losses by 3.15pm (London time). And across the Atlantic, the Dow hit a six-year low today with financial stocks suffering the worst losses. By mid-afternoon in London, Citigroup and Bank of America were showing percentage drops firmly in the double-digits.

With support levels for the major world indices being casually swept away as equity markets tumbled, the mood is reminiscent of last year’s low points, with investors searching in vain for reasons not to hit the sell button. Confidence levels aren’t being helped by the barrage of pessimism being whipped up at the prospect of a big-name nationalisation in the US financial sector. It’s going to take a bold move by the new US administration to stop this resurgent haemorrhaging of world markets – and with bail-outs being interpreted as signs of economic weakness there are no quick fixes.

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