Legal & General Share News (LGEN)

News that Greece is to hold a referendum on its latest bailout package and some worrying economic data at home and away rattled the markets on Tuesday, with the Footsie dropping close to 3%, while other European benchmarks fell by between 4% and 5%.GREEK REFERENDUM SCARES MARKETSThe decision by George Papandreou, the Greek Prime Minister, to hold a referendum on the details of the Greek bailout tortuously negotiated by Eurozone leaders, sent London sharply into reverse this morning. The announcement means that voters would be given the chance to reject the package, meaning that the country would then be unable to pay its debts.Michael Hewson, market analyst at CMC Markets, said: "While it may be the democratic thing to do given the loss of fiscal sovereignty to the troika until 2020, what happen if Greece votes "no", which is possible given how unpopular the bailout plan appears to be amongst Greece's voters? The resulting fallout could well result in a complete meltdown of the European banking system and throw Europe into turmoil."Not helping things either was news that activity in both the UK and the Chinese manufacturing sectors fell to the lowest levels since early 2009. The UK Markit/CIPS manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) fell from 50.8 to 47.4 in October, while the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing's manufacturing PMI fell from 51.2 to 50.4.However, the Office for National Statistics revealed today that UK gross domestic product rose by an annual rate and quarterly rate of 0.5% in the third quarter. Barclays Capital was expecting a more modest quarter-on-quarter up-tick of 0.3% growth. "Amid growing concerns about the UK growth and employment outlook, there will be some relief that these data were a little better than expected. However, we would caution against over interpreting the unexpected strength in today's numbers," said economist Chris Crowe.G4S BUCKS TREND, BANKS & MINERS TUMBLESecurity firm G4S was one of the two companies in the blue as investors celebrated the move to pull out of its attempt to buy the Danish cleaning company ISS for £5.2bn after shareholders blocked the deal. According to Alf Duch-Pedersen, chairman of G4S, shareholders raised concerns over the "scale and complexity" of the transaction. The stock sank in mid-October after group announced the potential acquisition. The global financial sector was reeling on fresh concerns of a Greek default, and stocks in London were no exception. Barclays topped the fallers, dropping nearly 9%, not helped by UBS which downgraded its rating on the bank from buy to neutral following its third quarter results yesterday.Man Group, ICAP and RBS were also among the worst performers. Meanwhile, Legal & General dropped after revealing this morning that new business sales, on an annualised premium equivalent basis, eased 1% to £1,338m from £1,347m the year before. Miners were out of favour on Tuesday also, as the worrying data in China spurred concerns over demand for resources from the world's second-largest economy. Kazakhmys, Antofagasta and Xstrata were firmly in the red.INVESTORS CELEBRATE BWIN.PARTY GAMBLEShares in online gaming firm bwin.party roared higher after the firm revealed a potentially lucrative deal to offer real money online poker in the US. The group said that is has signed a joint venture agreement and B2B agreement with hotel and casino operators MGM Resorts International and Boyd Gaming Corporation. However, there is one stumbling stock - bills to regulate, license and tax online poker in the country have not yet been passed by the government. Analyst James Hollins from Evolution Securities said that the agreements "should drive massive potential revenue upside, but only if and when the US introduces federal legislation. The likelihood and timing of this remains a key question, although we welcome the deal," he said in a research note this morning. BCFTSE 100 - RisersG4S (GFS) 247.80p +1.47%British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSY) 708.50p +0.64%FTSE 100 - FallersBarclays (BARC) 178.50p -8.60%Man Group (EMG) 137.40p -8.34%Weir Group (WEIR) 1,779.00p -7.30%ICAP (IAP) 376.70p -6.78%Kazakhmys (KAZ) 869.00p -6.31%Xstrata (XTA) 981.00p -6.17%Legal & General Group (LGEN) 103.80p -6.06%Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,099.00p -5.83%Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 22.91p -5.45%Aviva (AV.) 322.30p -5.43%FTSE 250 - RisersBwin.party Digital Entertainment (BPTY) 121.00p +10.30%Devro (DVO) 248.60p +1.06%Allied Gold Mining (ALD) 158.00p +0.64%F&C Commercial Property Trust Ltd. (FCPT) 103.20p +0.58%QinetiQ Group (QQ.) 117.40p +0.51%BH Macro Ltd. GBP Shares (BHMG) 1,970.00p +0.41%Anglo Pacific Group (APF) 270.40p +0.33%Impax Environmental Markets (IEM) 92.35p +0.27%UK Commercial Property Trust (UKCM) 77.65p +0.13%HICL Infrastructure Company Ltd. (HICL) 118.10p 0.00%FTSE 250 - FallersAfren (AFR) 89.45p -9.65%International Personal Finance (IPF) 250.70p -8.57%Thomas Cook Group (TCG) 47.55p -8.56%Dixons Retail (DXNS) 10.90p -8.02%Ferrexpo (FXPO) 299.10p -7.46%Soco International (SIA) 305.70p -7.42%Invensys (ISYS) 209.00p -7.32%Intermediate Capital Group (ICP) 228.10p -6.75%Inchcape (INCH) 305.00p -6.53%Cookson Group (CKSN) 450.00p -6.37%