FTSE 100 falls sharply from 13-year high After the FTSE's recent strong surge, Thursday's fall merely wipes out the gains by the share index made since Monday. Leading shares have fallen sharply from their recent 13-year highs, as investors took fright at weak Chinese manufacturing data and concerns that the US Federal Reserve might end its bond-buying programme sooner than expected. A day after the FTSE 100 came within 90 points of its December 1999 peak, the index slumped 2.1%, down 143.48 points at 6696.79. This is its worst daily performance in percentage terms since exactly a year ago. But after its recent strong surge, this latest fall merely wipes out the gains made since Friday. Overnight the the Nikkei 225 dropped more than 7% to 14,483.98 in the wake of a Chinese survey showing factory activity had fallen for the first time in seven months in May. In early trading on Wall Street the Dow Jones industrial average fell sharply initially but had recovered most of its losses by the London market close. Global markets have been buoyed in recent weeks by the various measures taken by central banks to stimulate the global economy, as well as growing signs that the actions were having a positive effect. The US Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, soothed market fears of an early end to its $85bn a month bond-buying programme in a testimony to Congress on Thursday. But just hours later, the minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting seemed to paint a different picture, suggesting the stimulus programme could ease off as early as June. Michael Hewson, senior market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said: "There was an expectation after Bernanke's testimony on Capitol Hill that the latest Fed minutes wouldn't add too much to overall market expectations around the prospects for further easing against expectations of possible tapering. This is hugely significant because this Fed meeting came before the most recent payrolls data and the huge upward revisions to the numbers that we saw at the beginning of May. If members of the committee felt this way before the huge upward revisions to the jobs numbers, then it stands to reason they probably feel even more inclined now, bringing forward the probability of an even livelier debate about the timing of a slowdown in the current levels of stimulus, when the Fed next meets on 18 and 19 June. Any level below 50 indicates contraction.