Image source, AFP/Getty Images

Easyjet was the biggest loser on the FTSE 100 shortly after midday. The budget airline was down 19% after it issued a profit warning due to a mix of factors, including Brexit.

Major banks and housebuilders also dragged the blue chip index down, as it fell 1.5% to 6,046.11. Their falls were partly offset by mining stocks and pharmaceutical firms.

The FTSE 100 is now back below where it was at the start of last week.  

Joe Miller
Business reporter

Travis Todd, the chief executive of Silicon Allee, a Berlin start-up community, stands in front of the building in Mitte which will soon house dozens of tech firms. 

While he regrets Britain's decision to leave the EU, he says people are "already saying that Berlin is an alternative to London" and that Brexit could be "advantageous" for the city.

"I've already received one email from a company thinking about relocating," he says.

Joe Miller
Business reporter

Berlin has long been touted as the start-up capital of Europe, after, of course, London. But is Brexit about to change all that? 

Some newspaper headlines here have suggested that thousands of new jobs could come to the city, which will now be seen as the gateway to the European market. 

But Ijad Madisch (above), chief executive of ResearchGate, a social network for scientists with 10 million users across the globe, thinks the threat to freedom of movement could outweigh any potential benefits to the Berlin tech scene. The firm employs 30 British citizens.

But Ijad is optimistic. Entrepreneurs, he says "always adjust to a political environment".

"I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you today if I wasn't an optimist".

Image source, Reuters

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney (above) and the rest of the interest rate-setting team could soon find themselves in an unenviable position, Laith Khalaf of Hargreaves Lansdown says.

"The Brexit vote has substantially moved the dial on interest rate expectations, with markets now pricing in a significant chance of rates going negative in the UK", says Mr Khalaf. 

"This is good news for borrowers, who can now expect lower mortgage rates for even longer, but cash savers will be wondering just how many years they have to wait to get a decent return on their deposits. 

"The Bank of England may soon find itself between a rock and a hard place, if the economy and inflation start pointing in different policy directions. 

"That’s because although the Brexit vote has increased economic uncertainty, it has also taken a toll on sterling, which is likely to feed through into inflation because it makes imports that much more expensive. 

"This raises the uncomfortable prospect for the central bank of cutting interest rates while inflation is rising, something it has proved it is willing to do in the past in order to boost the economy."  

The market is pricing in a 15% chance of UK interest rates turning negative over the course of the next year, says Laith Khalaf from Hargreaves Lansdown.

That means that we could be paying banks to hold our money for us. (For more on how negative interest rates work click here).

The market is now also giving a 50% chance of an interest rates cut in July, a 65% chance of a cut by August, and an 80% chance of a cut by the end of the year," his note adds.

BBC Sport

Image source, Getty Images

BBC Sports reports on some unforeseen consequences from the plunging pound... 

The Wimbledon singles champions will take home a cool £2m for their fortnight's work this year, up from £1.88m in 2015.

Good news for the top players you would think.

However the post-Brexit slump in the pound's value means that if American Serena Williams is victorious again and coverts her winner's cheque back to dollars, she would currently be left with 2.65m dolllars rather than the 2.93m dollars she earned last year.

They are the sort of punches you have to roll with as a jet-setting international sports superstar I guess. 

For those more interested in tennis than dollars, you can follow the Wimbledon Live Page.

Image source, PA

We mentioned gilt yields - the return from UK government bonds - earlier and how they're at their lowest ever level.

Luke Hickmore of Aberdeen Asset Management says "it's no wonder" they keep dropping.  

"There's no political leadership in the UK right when markets need the reassurance of direction," he says.  

Gilt yields dropped below 1% for the first time this morning, and are currently at half the rate they were at the start of the year.

Laith Khalaf, of Hargreaves Lansdown, said "gilts and gold are fear trades". Gold was at $1,335 an ounce a short while ago - sticking close to two-year highs.

Image source, PA

Banks and builders. They have been the worst hit by Brexit so far on the stock markets.

And the big property developers are down sharply again on the FTSE 100. 

Taylor Wimpey shares are down 16% so far today, while Barratt Developments and Travis Perkins both fell 13%.   

Investors see housebuilders, like banks, as the most exposed of FTSE shares to UK economic shocks.

The sharp falls in bank shares are not just being seen in the UK.

Italy's bank stocks have plunged following the Brexit vote, and are down even further today.

The Italian government has intervened and said it's looking at various policy options to help prop up their share prices. 

So we're just approaching 11am - how are the markets looking?

The FTSE 100 is extending losses - led by the airline Easyjet (down a whopping 19.5%)

Bank are also a major drag on the index - with RBS down 14.5% and Barclays down 11%.

On the currency markets sterling's slide against the dollar has intensified - it's now down more than 3% at £1.3221 - a new 31-year low, below even Friday's low.

Against the euro the pound is at its lowest since March 2014 at 83.41p.

Kamal Ahmed
Economics editor

From Project Blimey This Is Scary, welcome to Project Reassure.

George Osborne made a deliberate attempt this morning to soothe twitchy markets - the fundamentals, the chancellor insisted, have not changed.

The UK economy is still growing, Mr Osborne said; the banks are better financed than they were ahead of the economic crisis of 2008, Mr Osborne said; the deficit is down from 11% of national income to 3%; employment is at record levels and the Bank and England stands ready to support Britain's vital financial services sector.

Mr Osborne has abandoned plans - if he ever really had them - for an immediate "emergency budget" which he claimed would be needed after a vote to leave the EU.  

As Gerard Lyons, the former economic adviser to Boris Johnson, said at the weekend, some believe short term turbulence will soon be replaced by a new dynamism.

We are certainly not there yet.

And Mr Osborne and Mr Carney are going to have their work cut out convincing markets that Britain will be arriving at those new sunny uplands any time soon.

Read Kamal's blog in full

Ms Merkel begs to differ from Peter Hargreaves...