FTSE 100 soars on Chancellor’s speech amid Citigroup bailout

In London the FTSE 100 soared to its largest ever one day gain, this came as the US government announced the Citigroup bailout and the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, gave his pre-budget speech which included tax cuts and how he would be kick-starting the UK economy.

The FTSE 100 Index had already shot up 281.9 points before the Chancellor stood to speak, during his speech the FTSE gained another 90 points, finally closing up 9.84 percent or 372 points at 4152.96, this has raised the value of Britain’s top 100 companies by around £90 billion.

On the September 19 this year the FTSE has risen 8.84 percent which was the previous record due to the US and UK authorities signaled to ban short selling of financial shares. The FTSE had seen a whopping decline last week of 10.7 percent, with today’s gain is almost recovered.

The US federal government Citigroup bailout involved them taking a $20 billion share in the US bank. This led the Dow Jones to a 300 point increase as London markets closed. France’s CAC and Germany’s DAX gained 10 percent.

Source: Guardian