LONDON, July 22: Britain’s FTSE 100 index ended on Monday at a six-year closing low, with insurers sagging after a profit warning from Dutch insurer Aegon, and Shell down after its sister Royal Dutch was dropped from a key US index.

The blue chip UK index closed down 202.8 points at 3,895.5, making a two-day fall of some 400 points or 10 per cent, to its lowest finish since September 1996. Losses accelerated into the close as US share prices fell, raising worries of another slide to match Friday’s near 400-point Dow Jones rout.

Oils took some 53 points off the FTSE 100 with Shell down 9.3 per cent after its partner Royal Dutch was dropped from the Standard & Poor’s 500 index in a scheduled move clearing out foreign firms from the US index. Weak crude prices pressured the sector with BP down 7.9 per cent.

Global stock markets continued their downward trajectory as investors, bruised by US corporate scandals and disappointing earnings, opted for caution and bought government bonds and gold, pushing those safe-haven investments higher.

By midday the blue-chip Dow average lost 160 points, or 2 per cent, to 7,856. The tech-laced Nasdaq Composite Index shed 30 points, or 2.3 per cent, to 1,288. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lost 22 points, or 2.7 per cent, to 825.

The Dow has fallen every session but one in the past two weeks. Some $1.5 trillion in investor wealth has evaporated from the stock market since July 4, based on the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index. Other European stock markets were pinned near 4-year lows after a severe profit warning from Aegon, which cut its 2002 profit forecast by a third due to increased provisioning for rising corporate defaults and a weak dollar.

The FTSE Eurotop 300 index was down 4.8 per cent at 890, within reach of the 880.63 points trough of October 1998.

Declining issues outpaced advancers by five-to-one.

The Euro Stoxx 50 index of euro zone blue chips was down 5.5 1 per cent at 2,547.

Tokyo’s Nikkei average broke below the psychologically important 10,000 mark for the first time in five months. By the close, it had recovered to finish at 10,189.01, down just 0.13 per cent, helped by the dollar’s resilience against the yen and after traders judged the initial fall had been an over-reaction.

DOLLAR FIRMS: The dollar firmed against the euro here on Monday, bolstered by a better than expected opening on Wall Street, but dealers were keeping a sharp eye on US equities following the WorldCom bankruptcy filing.