London close: Footsie tumbles over 2%

The Footsie finished over 2% down on Friday, as London was not immune from the global sell-off, meaning that just eight out of the 100 blue chips stocks closed in the blue. After a poor start in early trade, sentiment was dampened after a worse-than-expected jobs report in the US which showed that no new jobs were added in the world's largest economy in August.Banks were among the worst performers of the day, with blue chip lenders Barclays, Lloyds and RBS reporting heavy losses.Barclays' share price was heading south despite an upgrade from neutral to buy from stock broker UBS. The broker highlighted "substantial potential value in Barclays if the proposals from the ICB [Independent Commission on Banking] did not precipitate a sharp near-term funding cost as a result of the introduction of ring fencing proposals." RBS also suffered a drop following a boost on Thursday on the back of a report in the Financial Times which said lenders in the UK will avoid any major restructuring before 2015's general election. Randgold Resources and Fresnillo were among the few risers, tracking gold and silver prices higher.The eagerly awaited headline results from a clinical trial comparing AstraZeneca's cholesterol treatment Crestor to Pfizer's Lipitor have been released, and have not delivered the knock-out blow that the company was hoping for. The results for the primary efficacy measure of the study demonstrated a numerically greater reduction in favour of Crestor versus atorvastatin but did not reach statistical significance. Astra's shares fell nearly 4%.Catering giant Compass bucked the trend to finish higher after it bought Cygnet Foods, a provider of lunches to more than 450 schools in England. In 2010, Cygnet had revenues of £9.3m and gross assets of £2.2m. Home Retail saw its share price take a tumble after UBS analysts said that it was highly likely that the firm's second quarter results, due next week, will show a continued troubled performance. The company, which owns Argos and Homebase, reported poor first quarter results in June which showed an 8% fall in sales. ITE Group was top of the FTSE 250 leaderboard after Investec upgraded it from hold to buy.Global technology business Smiths Group fell after saying that is to purchase Power Holdings, a designer and manufacturer of specialist power distribution, conditioning and monitoring systems.Ukrainian iron ore pellet producer Ferrexpo was in the red following that announcement that it has secured a new credit facility of $420m at a rate two and a quarter points above the London interbank offer rate (LIBOR). London Stock Exchange Group underwhelmed investors after confirming it is in discussions with LCH.Clearnet Group regarding a potential takeover of the Anglo-French clearing house. Shares were over 2% lower.Construction and property consultancy Cyril Sweett took a tumble after announcing that it had cancelled a number of projects in the Middle East. BCFTSE 100 - RisersRandgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 6,670.00p +4.30%Fresnillo (FRES) 2,033.00p +0.54%Tullow Oil (TLW) 1,112.00p +0.27%Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 2,092.00p +0.14%Compass Group (CPG) 552.50p +0.09%Tate & Lyle (TATE) 588.00p +0.09%Inmarsat (ISAT) 481.00p +0.08%Sage Group (SGE) 255.50p +0.04%FTSE 100 - FallersBarclays (BARC) 165.20p -8.40%Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 33.12p -7.14%Glencore International (GLEN) 390.35p -6.67%Weir Group (WEIR) 1,850.00p -5.90%Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 24.84p -5.37%International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (IAG) 167.00p -5.11%Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,317.00p -4.77%Anglo American (AAL) 2,458.00p -4.71%IMI (IMI) 853.00p -4.69%GKN (GKN) 191.70p -4.48%