Stock markets have opened sharply lower this morning as fresh Covid restrictions dented UK and European investor confidence.
At 8.45am, the FTSE 100 was trading down 1.7 per cent at 7,143.9.
Victoria Scholar, head of investment, at interactive investor, said: ‘Fears about new Omicron restrictions and below-average festive week volumes look set to drive a chopping week of trade ahead with little sign of a Santa rally so far.
‘In fact, it looks as though he came and went already with the FTSE 100 rallying in the first week of December before retracing around 60 per cent of those gains.’
Britain’s Prudential Regulation Authority has fined Standard Chartered £46.55million for failing to be open and cooperative with the regulator, and for failings in its controls.
Former Tesco CEO Dave Lewis has been appointed by GlaxoSmithKline as non-executive chair designate of the new consumer healthcare company, which will result from the proposed demerger from GSK in 2022.
GSK said Lewis’ appointment will take effect from 1 January 2022.
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‘SCB made five errors reporting the liquidity metric which meant the PRA did not have a reliable overview of its USD liquidity position.’
