Black Monday: Why cheap oil sent the world’s stock markets into a tailspin
Panic stalked the markets with traders’ screens showing a sea of red, writes James Moore
The economic black swan event that’s called Covid-19 might have found a mate. Flying in from the east comes an oil price shock courtesy of a row between Russia and Saudi Arabia.
The latter knocked 20 per cent off crude and contributed to an 8 per cent fall in value of the FTSE 100 upon the opening of trading.
While the index subsequently recovered a bit, it was still grappling with its worst single day since the financial crisis. The screens used by traders looked like a sellout crowd at Old Trafford in terms of colour.
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