BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - U.K. stocks fell sharply on Thursday as coronavirus infections continued to rise around the world and the latest batch of earnings disappointed.
Investor sentiment was further dampened over a warning from the Fed that the U.S. economic outlook is darkening.
The benchmark FTSE 100 dropped 88 points, or 1.44 percent, to 6,042 after finishing marginally higher the previous day.
Lloyds Banking Group plunged 7.5 percent after it swung to a pretax loss in the first half of 2020.
Royal Dutch Shell dropped 1.7 percent as it booked a US$18.1bn quarterly loss after a record writedown on the value of its oil and gas assets.
Standard Chartered tumbled 4.2 percent after reporting a 33 percent fall in its first-half profit.
Foodservice company Compass Group fell over 1 percent after it reported a 44 percent fall in organic revenue in its third quarter.
RSA Insurance Group lost 3 percent after its statutory profit before tax fell 7 percent in the first half.
Anglo American declined 3.6 percent. The diversified miners slashed dividend after first-half profits fell 39 percent.
Drug maker AstraZeneca rallied 3.2 percent after its second-quarter sales and profit topped forecasts.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX