On a day for which the word 'volatile' could have been invented, leading shares finally finished down 2.6%, wiping £35bn off the value of the UK's top 100 companies.
The FTSE 100 fell 137.97 points to 5123.02. and by the time London closed Wall Street was 120 points lower. But that doesn't begin to tell the story. At one point the Dow Jones Industrial Average had slumped 260 points and at its lowest, London's leading index had lost more than 200 points. It was on course for the biggest daily fall since March 2009, when HSBC launched a deeply discounted £12.5bn rights issue.
Volumes were close to record levels too, so it was not just a case of marking prices down. There was genuine selling. Investors were unnerved by a toxic cocktail of continuing worries about Greece and possible contagion effects on other European countries and the banking sector, the 1000 point plunge on Wall Street last night for - as yet - unexplained reasons and - closer to home - the hung parliament after yesterday's election.
In the event the index recovered from its worst levels and only recorded its biggest one day points fall since Tuesday - although it was the seventh worst on record.
But that too tells a tale. With two big daily falls this week, the FTSE 100 has lost 7.7% since Tuesday morning, its biggest weekly loss since March 2009.
That is some going, given it was a curtailed Bank Holiday week and not a full five days trading.
The leading index has now lost 700 points since this year's high in April. And just to complete the picture, today is also the FTSE 100's lowest level since 9 February this year.
