Asset managers hit by market woes Still, one beneficiary of the increase in market volatility is likely to be inter-dealer broker Tullett Prebon as transaction volumes are expected to increase, the analysts argued. They raised their rating on Tullett to "buy" and the mid-capper rose 12½ to 305p. Peer ICAP edged up 1.1 to 365.3p. Indeed, there was certainly plenty of market turmoil today. Traders, it transpired, were right to fear what US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke had to say on Wednesday evening. His confirmation that the Fed would soon start tapering its quantitative easing (QE) programme, which helped drive the FTSE 100 to a 13-year high only last month, sparked a global sell-off. Dealers in London joined the fray as soon as the market opened and the benchmark index, which dipped on Wednesday amid nervousness ahead of Mr Bernanke's statement, closed 189.31 points lower at 6,159.51, a 3pc drop that was its worst daily fall since September 2011. Not a single blue-chip company ended the day in positive territory. The Fed was not solely responsible for sending markets lower, however. Weak manufacturing data and a spike in money market rates in China - the world's biggest buyer of industrial metals - further unnerved investors. That dragged on the London-listed miners. Antofagasta slid 45 to 824½, Glencore Xstrata cheapened 14.6 to 292.7p, and BHP Billiton declined 83½p to £17.28½. The precious metals producers were the hardest hit, hurt by the slump in the spot price of gold - bolstered in recent years by QE that increased inflation worries. Polymetal shed 73½ to 541p, Fresnillo fell 84½ to 960½p and Randgold Resources closed 348p lower at £42.96. Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, who modelled the impact of falling gold prices on free cash flows, piled further pressure on the yellow metal diggers. Should gold hit $1,200 dollars an ounce, Petropavlovsk, off 13.9 at 130.1p, Hochschild Mining, down 10.4 at 191.4p, and African Barrick Gold, 4.7 worse at 118p, "could struggle to maintain their current level of cash dividends," the BAML experts said. Elsewhere on that index, troubled coal producer New World Resources, hurt by an extremely bearish analyst note on Wednesday, lost a further 14.4, or 18pc, to a new record low of 65.6p, adding to the 12.5pc fall suffered a day earlier. The company, along with Petropavlovsk, is to be demoted from the mid-cap index after the close tomorrow, which means funds that track the FTSE 250 have to sell the shares. The mid-cap index itself plunged 342.98 to 13,667.38 today. It was not all doom and gloom. Among the second-liners, Ted Baker surged 230p to an all-time high of £17.00 after impressing investors with a 32.7pc rise in revenue during the 20 weeks ending June 15. Ashtead, the equipment rental group, advanced 31½ to 658½p after posting a 60pc jump in full-year pre-tax profits to £215.5m. Microchip designer Imagination Technologies, however, declined 17.8 to 306.4p amid growing concern about the threat posed by US rival Nvidia, which disclosed on Wednesday that it planned to sell licences for its graphics technology. Analysts at UBS, who rate Imagination a "sell," said that Nvidia would become "a direct competitor in the graphics [intellectual property] market." Others argued ARM Holdings, down 36½ at 799p, could also be hurt by the arrival of fresh competition. Outside the FTSE 250, there was a touch of bid excitement in New Britain Palm Oil (NBPO), which operates plantations in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Kulim, the Malaysian company that already holds a stake of approximately 49pc in NBPO, offered to boost its holding by snapping up a further 30m shares at 550p each in a partial takeover, pushing the London-listed company 32½ higher to 512½p. The proposed price for the 20pc stake represents a premium of 14.6pc to Wednesday's close that Sophie Jourdier, analyst at Liberum Capital, described as "relatively low." Arguing that the offer was not particularly attractive, she said that Kulim could be trying to take advantage of soft palm oil prices and NBPO's recent production difficulties.