Hope for calm after shares storm
Updated on 11 August 2007
Stock Market experts are cautiously hoping for a calmer start to the coming week following Friday's steep falls in shares.
Almost £56 billion was wiped from London's leading companies in the continuing fall-out from the turmoil in American sub-prime mortgages.
The FTSE 100 Index lost more than 3.7% - its biggest percentage fall in more than four years.
The latest sell-off came after the European Central Bank pumped emergency cash into money markets to keep them afloat.
The move has been echoed by national banks in Japan, Canada and Australia, and Friday also saw a fresh intervention from the US Federal Reserve, leading to a recovery on Wall Street.
Henk Potts, equity strategist at Barclays Wealth, said he hoped for a calmer start to the week.
He said: "The Dow Jones recovered significantly during the course of Friday. One would suspect that will provide an element of confidence to European bourses, so while there is still the potential for volatility, I would hope we will be looking at a calmer start to the week."
The main problem at the moment was investors' uncertainty, he said.
"They are finding it very difficult to quantify which financial institutions have exposure to the losses, or the level of potential liabilities.
"That uncertainty is driving markets down."
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