The London stock market continued to slide as traders digested emerging details of a multitrillion-pound eurozone rescue plan.
The FTSE 100 Index was nearly 2% lower as crisis talks between world finance leaders in Washington over the weekend failed to inspire traders.
Emergency measures to rescue the euro, costing two to three trillion euros (£2.6 trillion), and potentially allowing an orderly debt default in Greece, could be revealed in a matter of days.
But Cameron Peacock, market analyst at IG Markets, said: "The key demand from investors is for action as opposed to words."
Britain's top 100 companies saw £78 billion wiped from their value last week as the sovereign debt crisis and America's creaking public finances fuelled fears of another global recession.
Pumping cash into a number of Europe's beleaguered banks is the cornerstone of a rumoured three-pronged plan being discussed to save the single currency.
The shoring up of vulnerable banks would allow Greece to partly default on its debt - wiping billions of pounds from the country's balance sheet. The third part to the plan involves providing additional firepower for the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) - the bailout fund - which could cost trillions of euros.
But analysts warned that investors were likely to remain sceptical.
Mr Peacock said: "It's becoming increasingly difficult to give credibility to suggestions that a solution can be found that won't see many getting their fingers burnt as a result."
The weak start on the FTSE 100 Index follows a similarly poor performance in Asia, where Japan's Nikkei 225 Index fell more than 2% and the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong was down nearly 3%.
The London stock market continued to slide as traders digested emerging details of a multitrillion-pound eurozone rescue plan.
The FTSE 100 Index was nearly 2% lower as crisis talks between world finance leaders in Washington over the weekend failed to inspire traders.
Emergency measures to rescue the euro, costing two to three trillion euros (£2.6 trillion), and potentially allowing an orderly debt default in Greece, could be revealed in a matter of days.
But Cameron Peacock, market analyst at IG Markets, said: "The key demand from investors is for action as opposed to words."
Britain's top 100 companies saw £78 billion wiped from their value last week as the sovereign debt crisis and America's creaking public finances fuelled fears of another global recession.
Pumping cash into a number of Europe's beleaguered banks is the cornerstone of a rumoured three-pronged plan being discussed to save the single currency.
The shoring up of vulnerable banks would allow Greece to partly default on its debt - wiping billions of pounds from the country's balance sheet. The third part to the plan involves providing additional firepower for the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) - the bailout fund - which could cost trillions of euros.
But analysts warned that investors were likely to remain sceptical.
Mr Peacock said: "It's becoming increasingly difficult to give credibility to suggestions that a solution can be found that won't see many getting their fingers burnt as a result."
The weak start on the FTSE 100 Index follows a similarly poor performance in Asia, where Japan's Nikkei 225 Index fell more than 2% and the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong was down nearly 3%.