More than €2.5bn was wiped off the Irish Stock Exchange yesterday as shares on global stock markets plunged.

Heavyweights CRH, Ryanair, Aryzta and Kingspan all saw significant share price drops.

Bank of Ireland, AIB and insurer FBD were all weaker as the global slump represented a fall of 3.11pc on the Irish market.

The turbulence on global stock markets came as the arrest of a senior Chinese technology executive threatened to cause another flare-up in tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of the founder of Huawei, was arrested by Canadian authorities in Vancouver, and faces extradition to the US.

News of her arrest sparked a slump on markets worldwide as tensions mount between the US and China.

Last night, US stocks clawed their way back from a deep slide that had at one point threatened to wipe out the market’s gains for the year.

Ireland’s financial slump yesterday came two days after another difficult day of trading.

On Tuesday, more than €2bn was wiped off Irish shares, with the Iseq index hit hard by a double whammy of global jitters over trade and continuing fears of a hard Brexit.

On November 15 last, some €3.3bn was wiped off the value of the Iseq index.

This was linked to the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, with an embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May trying to get her Brexit deal across the line.

Since then, she has received the overall support of her cabinet, with the deal also having been endorsed by the 27 other EU member states.

The deal will now go to a vote in the House of Commons next week – so more market disruption is expected.

The slump in November represented the worst day for the Irish Stock Exchange in almost two-and-a-half years, with shares down almost 4pc.

The Iseq index is now 15pc below its level at the start of this year, and 11pc lower than where shares were a year ago.

The FTSE 100 in Britain declined 3.1pc, its biggest drop since the UK held a vote to leave the European Union in June 2016.

Other major indexes also fell sharply yesterday.

The DAX in Germany dropped 3.5pc, while France’s CAC 40 lost 3.3pc.

The news also resulted in another down day for markets in Asia.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index tumbled 2.5pc and Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 1.9pc. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.2pc, while South Korea’s Kospi sank 1.6pc. Shares also fell in Taiwan and all other regional markets.

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