Markets: FTSE 100 slides back below 7,000

FTSE 100 down 1.2% to 6,946
Gold down 0.62% to $1,204.65/oz
£/$ - 1.5438

Drugmaker Hikma Pharmaceuticals was the worst performer of the day, down 3.7%. Other big fallers included building supplies firm CRH, which lost 3.7%, and Dixons Carphone, which fell 3%.

In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 each fell 0.4% to 18,035 and 2,106 respectively, and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.6% lower at 5,023.

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Overnight in Japan, the Nikkei 225 lost 2.7% to 19,520, and the broader Topix index shed 2.1% to 1,592. And in China, the Shanghai Composite fell 0.8% to 4,441, and the CSI 300 was 0.5% lower at 4,749.

Brent spot was trading at $65.67 early today, and in New York, crude oil was at $58.72. Spot gold was trading at $1,205 an ounce, silver was at $16.61, and platinum was at $1,150.

In the forex markets this morning, sterling was trading against the US dollar at 1.5460 and against the euro at 1.3782. The dollar was trading at 0.8914 against the euro and 118.90 against the Japanese yen.

And today, Royal Dutch Shell announced a big fall in profits for the first quarter of the year, down over 50% from $7.33bn to $3.25bn. Exploration and production profits slumped from $5.7bn to just $675m, but were bolstered by profits from refining, which rose from $1.58bn to $2.56bn.

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