In early trading, the FTSE is once more coming under sustained selling pressure and is down around 1.6%.

BP was again in focus for all the wrong reasons, with a further 3% drop in value this morning after yesterday's extraordinary 13% tumble – the single biggest intraday loss for the oil giant in 18 years. News that BP will face both civil and criminal investigations in the US fuelled the fire of the investor fear that has already ravaged the company's share price. The knock-on effect of BP's woes is highly significant for the wider market, with the oil giant's losses yesterday accounting for an astonishing 47 points being shed from the FTSE. BP's sector mates – including Royal Dutch Shell, Cairn Energy and BG Group – are all witnessing dips in their share prices as concerns flare up around
 the entire oil industry.

The FTSE, along with many other European indices, seems to be trading on raw emotion at the moment – most notably that of fear. Today's wide-ranging losses testify to a general bearishness, with the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico simply amplifying widespread pessimism in markets. The flipside, of course, is that investors will be looking to call the bottom of the market and benefit from current low prices. With the market hovering around its low for the year, it wouldn't be too surprising to see some sort of rebound in the medium-term.