Market overview: Carney talking the pound lower?

1630:Close Randgold Resources did best on Wednesday, a not unlikely outcome given the Footsie’s skid lower into bear-market territory. At the bottom of the pile were oil and commodity stocks as West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures threatened to lose the $26 mark. In global capital markets more generally, the focus shifted towards the Hong Kong dollar, amid worries – and fresh estimates – about the scale of capital flight out of China. Do the policy-makers meeting in Davos know what they are doing? Exactly? One outspoken veteran ex-trader appeared to harbour his doubts. Carney on the other hand perhaps did, some observers seemed to suggest: talk down the pound. Three-month copper futures skidded lower by 1.9% to $4,351.50 in LME trading. Fed rate hike expectations for this year were lower, naturally. On Thursday it will be the ECB's turn, although it might choose to downplay recent events, as the Bank of Canada seemingly did today. FTSE 100 down 203.22 points to 5,673.58.

1613: WTI prompt-month futures now below $27 a barrel.

1603: The top flight index dropped into bear-market territory on Wednesday, having fallen by over 20% in intra-day trading from the peak it reached on 27 April 2015. Nonetheless, a session close below the 5,683.18 point mark was necessary to confirm the move.

1530: The Footsie is dropping by just over 3% now and is within a whisker from falling into 'bear-market' territory. The level to watch comes in at 5,683.18, which would mark a 20% drop from the 2015 highs.

1500: The Bank of Canada kept its main policy rate unchanged at 0.50%.

1445: Speaking in Davos, economist Nouriel Roubini, one of those who forewarned the 2008 financial crisis, said he didn’t believe things are as bad this time. “It is not going to be like 2008-09. There is not the excessive leverage in the financial system that there was last time,” he said, adding that 2016 will still be a bumpy year until central banks respond. "The big thing that should happen is China should stop kicking the can down the road and get on with some serious structural reforms.”

1330: US consumer prices undershot market expectations, with fresh data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealing that headline consumer price inflation slipped by a tenth of a percentage point to a 0.7% year-on-year pace in December (consensus: 0.8%). Core inflation on the other hand advanced by 2.1% year-on-year, as anticipated. Housing starts were wide of the mark, falling by 2.5% month-on-month in the same month, although a better than expected print of 1.232m permits acted as an offset.

1330: Three-month copper futures were down by 1.9% to $4,351.50 per metric tonne in LME trading.

1137: According to the IIF net capital outflows from emerging markets hit $735bn last year, more than the $540bn it predicted back in October, the FT reported. It was the first year of outflows since 1988. All but $59bn of that amount was drained from China. Significantly, the discrepancy between the actual outcome and the IIF’s forecast was largely the result of the opacity of the financial channels used to run the blockade of Beijing’s capital controls. Many of those flows appear to have fallen into the category of “errors and omissions”.

1113: The US dollar was 1.90% stronger against the ruble to 80.23.

0930: UK employment hit its highest level in the quarter to November since at least 1971, ONS says. Headline wage growth at 2.0% year-on-year for the latest reference period has undershot market expectations. However, Pantheon Macroeconomics cautions not to read too much into the data on salaries, especially with the National minimum wage set to kick in soon.

0928: Stocks have started sharply lower out of the gate led by drops in the shares of miners and asset managers, with investors casting a wary eye to Hong Kong, amid reports of speculation that it might de-peg the HK dollar from the greenback. Similar speculation was out and about before Christmas, but in reference to Saudi Arabia. FTSE 100 down 177.79 points to 5,699.72 points.