Libya concerns and eurozone fears drag on markets

Markets fell across the board at the start of trading today, after Moody’s downgraded Spain’s government debt from Aa1 to Aa2 with a negative outlook.

Oil prices also retreated slightly after yesterday's rebound with Brent crude dropping by 0.35% to $115.53, while WTI fell 0.26% to $104.65. Traders are still nervous ahead of a planned day of protest in Saudi Arabia tomorrow.

In the UK, the FTSE slumped by 0.63% to 5,900.05 this morning. The top five winners were Schroders, up 1.28% on a strong set of results for 2010, Shire Plc, Imperial Tobacco Group, GlaxoSmithKline and African Barrick Gold.

ARM Holdings fell the most by 2.83% while Aggreko, Kingfisher, Standard Life and BHP Billiton also lost.

Overnight, US stocks stalled on the back of the continued turmoil in Libya, which offset optimism over domestic economic conditions.

The Dow Jones was marginally down 0.01% to 12,213 while the Nasdaq fell 14 points to 2,751.

In Europe, the German Dax fell by 0.7% and the French Cac also retreated by 0.8%.

Asian stocks also decreased with the Nikkei falling by 1.46%.