FTSE100 Looses GBP50 Billion Monday

The FTSE 100 index closed down 212.5 points Monday at 5204.2 points.

In percentage terms that is "just" a "mere" 3.92% drop, which ranks it outside the Top 20 biggest one day falls.

But in monetary terms that's £50bn wiped off the top 100 British companies.

That is a hell of a lot more than was lost in the infamous Black Monday crash of 1987 when shares fell more than 12% in just one October day.

But the crisis may not be over by any stretch of the imagination - after London had closed Wall Street took another turn for the worst, dropping more than 300 points and back to its lows for the day.

State and Treasury officials met with a slew of financiers in New York Monday night for eleventh hour negotiations in an attempt to rescue ailing insurance giant AIG. Don't they sponsor Man Utd? Maybe the club could auction off one of Wes Brown's legs in an attempt to rescue the club sponsor?

Back home in London, HBOS, which at one point in the day had shed more than a third of its value, closed down 49.5p or 17.5% at 232.5p as traders speculated about whether it will be next to fall.