A string of profit warnings from safe-haven British companies sparked fears yesterday that the deadly tentacles of the sub-prime crisis were starting to spread, The Times reports.
A cut in interest rates by the Bank of England to 5.25% failed to overcome investor gloom as a volley of surprise profit and sales warnings from bellwether British companies, such as GlaxoSmithKline, Yell and BT, fuelled fears of a deepening economic crisis. One-off factors as well as a general souring of investor sentiment led to a sell-off across the board. Jeremy Tigue, the head of global equities for F&C and manager of the Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust, said: “There is real concern that the problems are starting to move from the financial sector to the whole market and that ther...
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