FTSE faces worst year since launch
The FTSE 100 Index's worst ever year will be confirmed when the market closes after a disastrous 12 months for UK blue-chips.
London's top flight has plunged by 32% so far in 2008 and even the post-Christmas cheer of the past few sessions is not set to prevent it from seeing the biggest annual fall since it was created 24 years ago.
The credit crunch, housing market slump and banking crisis have wiped billions of pounds from the value of the Footsie over the past year.
But the financial turmoil took many by surprise, with some making bullish predictions at the start of the year that the FTSE 100 could beat its all-time high to hit 7000 or more in 2008.
The Footsie confounded these optimistic expectations as the credit crunch wreaked havoc across the global financial system, dragging country after country into recession and sending shockwaves through stock markets.
London's benchmark index plunged to 3714 in October - its lowest point since April 2003 in the midst of the Iraq war.
Although shares have since recovered slightly, the Footsie currently stands more than 2060 points lower than its opening mark of 6456.9 for 2008.
This dire performance even surpasses 2002's 25% decline in the midst of the dot com crash. A 32% fall would also be the second biggest annual slide of all time, only overshadowed by the 55.3% fall for the FTSE All-Share seen in 1974.
Stricken banks HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland are among the year's worst performers. The two groups were forced to call on the taxpayer for a multi-billion pound rescue bail out after suffering in the aftermath of the credit crunch - a crisis which slashed HBOS shares by more than 90% and 87% for RBS.
Lloyds, another to receive State support under the Government's part-nationalisation scheme, has also seen its shares plummet, down 73% in a sector-wide bloodbath that has already left the taxpayer nursing hefty losses on its stakes.
