More than £20bn was wiped off the value of the FTSE 100 this morning as investors turned increasingly nervous about a leave vote on 23 June.
The ‘Brexit’ fears caused the FTSE to crash nearly 80 points to fall below the 6,000 mark for the first time since February in the first few hours of trading.
The FTSE has lost more than £80bn in four days, since the polls began showing a small but significant lead for the Leave campaign.
The pound also fell sharply against the dollar and a variety of other world currencies.
Money is shifting out of the UK so quickly that German government bonds turned negative – with investors preferring to pay Germany to hold their money for the next decade than keep it in the increasingly risky UK.
The uncertainty surrounding the result of the referendum also caused share market crashes in Germany and France, with economists warning that a Leave vote could cause the European Union and the UK to fall back into recession.
Recent polls, both online and by phone, have the Leave campaign in the lead by between one and seven percent with nine days until the referendum.
