Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
The London stock market has fallen sharply at the start of trading, as investor confidence is rocked by fears over problems in the US regional banking sector.
The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares has tumbled by 131 points at the start of trading, a fall of 1.4%, down to 9304 points.
Banks are among the top fallers, with Barclays down 4.7%, Standard Chartered losing 4.3% amd NatWest off 3.1%. Asset manager ICG has lost 5%.
Traders are alarmed that two US banks yesterday disclosed issues with bad and fraudulent loans, raising fears that more problems may be lurking in the sector.
