Monday evening business bulletin

Jan 28 2008 By Andrew Mernin

The FTSE 100 Index’s turbulent start to the year continued today with a see-saw session that failed to get out the red.

The top flight index ended the day 80.1 points down on 5788.9 - a fall of more than 1% - as investors fretted over a US recession and falling markets across Asia.

Early losses in New York saw the Footsie fall almost 3% at one point this afternoon. But it clawed back some lost ground as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied when poor homes sales figures boosted hopes of another US interest rate cut this week to spur the economy.

During a volatile start in London, the Footsie fell more than 90 points in the first hour of trading only to pick up soon afterwards. It then levelled off at around 100 points down before the afternoon session.

Credit card companies are raking in millions of pounds in penalty fees as one in five customers misses a repayment, figures showed today.

Around 11% of cardholders, the equivalent of more than five million people, were unable to make a monthly repayment during the six months to December 21, according to financial website MoneyExpert.com.

The group said the figure was a 2% increase on the number of people who were unable to keep up with their credit card debt during the six months to June 4, when 9% failed to make a monthly repayment.

The number of repossessed homes being sold at auction has soared to levels last seen during the 1990s house price crash, an auctioneer said today.

Europe’s biggest residential property auction house Allsop said nearly 40% of all the homes it was currently putting under the hammer were properties that were being sold by banks and building societies that had repossessed them.

The group said its February catalogue had 410 lots, around 38% of which were being sold by lenders, double the proportion for the same time last year.

The pound at 5pm was US$1.9863 compared to US$1.9796 at the previous close while the euro at 5pm was £0.7447 compared to £0.7413 at the previous close.