FTSE 100 falls after blue-chips including BT, Shell and BP slide

The FTSE 100 lost ground on Tuesday, pushed down by sharp falls across constituents including BT, plus energy giants Shell and BP.

The blue-chip index fell 84 points, or 1%, to end the day at 8,273.

BT shares fell 6.4% after Sky struck a broadband deal with CityFibre, one of the telecoms giant’s biggest rivals.

The deal, first reported by the Telegraph newspaper, will see CityFibre launch broadband services on Sky’s network from next year, and comes as a blow to BT, which currently hosts Sky customers on its Openreach network.

Meanwhile, a drop in the price of oil caused BP and Shell to lose ground on Tuesday, falling 2.76% and 2.84% respectively.

Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, said the FTSE 100 was pulled down by its “heavy weighting towards oil stocks”.

She said: “Hopes of a ceasefire in Gaza and continuing concerns about Chinese demand combined to drive oil prices to their lowest levels since the beginning of August and that put index heavyweights BP and Shell under pressure.”

Brent crude oil futures were down 0.46% to 77.300 US dollars as markets were closing in London.

At the end of the day in Europe Frankfurt’s Dax index fell 0.36%, while the Cac 40 in Paris had closed down 0.25%.

Stateside, after markets had closed in Europe the S&P 500 was trading down 0.28%, while the Dow Jones was 0.29% lower.

On currency markets the pound had gained 0.23% against the dollar at 1.302 and had risen 0.05% against the euro at 1.173.

In company news, engineering firm John Wood Group revealed it slumped to a near one billion US dollar (£770 million) half-year loss just weeks after a Dubai suitor walked away from a £1.56 billion proposed takeover.

The firm, which provides oilfield and engineering services, reported pre-tax losses of 961.7 million US dollars (£740.1 million) against losses of 26 million US dollars (£20 million) a year ago.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were easyJet, up 5.5p to 438.7p, Endeavour Mining, up 19p to 1650p, Taylor Wimpey, up 1.7p to 165.55p, IAG, up 1.55p to 173.7p, and 3i Group, up 26p to 3217p.

The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were BT, down 9.3p to 136.3p, JD Sports, down 5.65p to 123.2p, Shell, down 80p to 2733p, BP, down 12.2p to 429.85p, and Segro, down 22.6p to 873.4p.