UK hit by record rise in fuel prices as Iran war bites; Trump sends European stock markets sliding – business live

03.21 EDT European stock markets fall as investors price in 'economic catastrophe' Stock markets are falling across Europe, as investors react to Donald Trump’s special address last night, in which he vowed to send Iran “back to the stone ages”. Frankfurt’s stock market has started the day with a bump; Germany’s DAX share index is down 1.5%. France’s CAC 40 has dropped by 1.35%, and Italy’s FTSE Mib is down 1.2%. London’s FTSE 100 index is showing a smaller fall – now down 0.6%, as oil company shares rally. Chris Beauchamp, chief analyst at IG , says markets are now anticipating longer delays to oil supplies from the Gulf, as Trump didn’t provide guidance for how the conflict may end. “In what might be the most dramatic April Fools’ of recent years, Donald Trump did nothing of what was expected in his speech. Instead of ‘no more war’, we got ‘no, more war!’, with heavier strikes expected and a fresh warning of attacks on power plants. This leaves markets back where they were last week, and now we have to price in hundreds of millions of barrels of oil that aren’t coming out any time soon. The gloomy predictions of last week would have been perhaps misplaced if Trump had signalled a quick end, but now markets are back to pricing in economic catastrophe.”