FTSE falls on Ebola, economic scares

By Liisa Tuhkanen and Francesco Canepa

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's main equity index fell for a second day on Wednesday as worries about Ebola reaching Europe hurt travel firms and telecoms tester Spirent Communications became the latest UK company to warn on profits.

Shares in Tui Travel and airline easyJet fell 3.9 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively, extending the previous day's falls prompted by a confirmed Ebola case in Madrid. The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, meanwhile, died on Wednesday morning at a Dallas hospital.

Analysts said it would take substantial evidence of people changing travel plans because of Ebola for the epidemic to have a material impact on profits.

"Everybody in the travel industry is waiting to see if the virus will spread. It could be very significant or it could be nothing," said Robin Byde, analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald Europe.

Gert Zonneveld, co-head of research at Panmure Gordon, said the sell-off was premature. "Historically with things like (the 2003 outbreak of) Sars we did see impact on travel, but that impact has typically been fairly short-lived and share prices have recovered from that fairly quickly," Zonneveld said.

Mid-cap telecoms testing company Spirent fell 7.7 percent after reporting a subdued performance in the United States and China.

Its warning, which follows profit outlook cuts by supermarket Tesco and sweetener maker Tate & Lyle among others in recent weeks, further strained investor confidence in lofty profit expectations for London-listed companies, which trade at a premium to their continental peers.

It also added to concerns about a global economic slowdown after weak data from economies including China and Germany and a cut to the International Monetary Fund's global growth estimates on Tuesday.

"This is effectively just the straw that broke the camel's back. It says a lot about how investors perceive the levels that we've been trading at if everyone's fingers are on the trigger and at the first sign of negativity, we get heavy selling," said Alpari UK market analyst Craig Erlam.

The UK's blue-chip FTSE 100 index closed 13.34 points lower, or 0.2 percent, at 6,482.24 points, taking its fall from a 14-1/2 year high hit last month to 6 percent.

Investors were awaiting the publication of minutes from the Federal Reserve's latest rate-setting committee at 19:00 p.m. BST for indications of how soon the U.S. central bank plans to raise interest rates.

(Editing by Ruth Pitchford and Louise Heavens)