MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Jonathan Sibun and Jeremy Warner – “The FTSE 100 closed up 25.20 to 5,066.81 on Friday, but ended the week down 5.62pc, with £78bn knocked off the value of Britain’s blue-chip companies. While the index closed higher, it had fallen as much as 1.6pc earlier in the day, dropping through the pyschologically important 5,000 mark.

The falls came as traders were left underwhelmed by a communique rushed out in the early hours of Friday morning by G20 finance ministers at the IMF meeting in Washington. In the wake of Thursday’s global stock market rout, the G20 committed ‘to take all necessary actions to preserve the stability of banking systems and financial markets’ but was criticised for failing to introduce concrete measures.

Speaking at the IMF meeting on Friday, UK Chancellor George Osborne ratcheted up the pressure on European leaders to solve the crisis by calling on them to bolster the European bail-out fund and declaring they have just six weeks to find solutions.

‘Patience is running out in the international community… More needs to be done to avoid a disorderly outcome,’ he said, before referring to the next G20 meeting in Cannes on November 3 and 4. ‘The eurozone has six weeks to resolve its political crisis.'” Read more.

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