The London market was routed yesterday with the FTSE 100 suffering its biggest one day percentage fall since Black Monday in 1987, and biggest points fall ever.

The blue-chip index dropped 391.1 points, or 7.9 per cent, to finish at a four-year low of 4,589.2 as investors threw in the towel amid fears that a deep global economic slowdown was taking hold in spite of measures to bail out the banking system.