Worries about China’s slowdown pushed down benchmark U.S. crude, which fell 23 cents to $41.09 a barrel.
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The FTSE 100 has fallen for nine sessions in a row, its longest losing streak since 2011. However, the index has since been plagued by political instability in Greece and the slowdown in China.
“Growth in the smartphone market has been the key driver of ARM’s royalty revenue, in our view”, analysts at Liberum wrote in a note, reducing forecast revenue for the next three years.
China’s main index in Shanghai was 4.2% down on Friday, falling below the 200-day moving average for the first time since July 2014, and markets linked to the mainland also suffered with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropping 1.9%.
“Uncertainty concerning the Chinese economy continues to rattle stocks“, said Markus Huber, senior analyst at Peregrine & Black.
The dollar meanwhile slipped against the euro after the US Federal Reserve earlier this week dampened expectations of a US interest rate rise next month.
Markets will be watching out for the Markit composite PMIs for August, announced at 9am BST, Europe Friday.
The FTSE correction comes as economists express fears about the robustness of the global economy amid further crisis in China.
He added: “The authorities claimed that there will be a rebound in demand in the second half but it appears that the opposite is happening”.
This is £7.3billion, or 23.3 per cent, lower than it was at the same point a year ago.
A detailed breakdown of the activity survey showed conditions were deteriorating on nearly every level, with factory output sinking to a near four-year low, domestic and export orders declining at a faster rate than in July and companies laid off more workers.
Greece today cleared €3.4bn owed to the European Central Bank, effectively ending the bitter feud dividing the leftist-governed eurozone nation and its European creditors that threatened to force the country out of the euro and sow chaos in the global economy. “With eight months of the fiscal year still to go and often large revisions to early borrowing estimates, it is too soon to conclude that the Chancellor is meeting his fiscal plans with room to spare and could therefore reduce the scale of the austerity measures set to hit the economy”. On Thursday, the S&P had its worst day since February 2014. The DAX may post a weekly loss of 6%, which would be its sharpest weekly fall since November 2011, according to FactSet data.
Most mining stocks swung lower Friday afternoon. France’s Peugeot Citroen (Euronext Paris: UG-FR) and Germany’s Daimler were both lower, but Renault (Euronext Paris: RNO-FR) reversed losses to trade in positive territory.
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Greek stocks sank despite Athens paying back a chunk of its latest bailout, as concerns elsewhere dragged down global markets.
