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Good morning from the newsroom of the Financial Times.

Today is Friday, December 21st, and this is your FT news briefing.

Today we'll be looking at the worst December for the S&P 500 since 1931, why the military was called in to deal with chaos at London's

Gatwick Airport and Malaysia targeting Goldman Sachs for reparations over the 1 MDB D. B scandal.

Then the FT's Amy Williams is here to explain why the US is pulling troops out of

Syria and how that move has caused disarray in the Trump administration.

I'm Eric Krupky and here's the news has caused disarray in the Trump administration.

I'm Eric Krupky and here's the news you need to start your day.

Hi, I'm Michael Mackenzie, I'm the Senior Investments Commentator here at the Financial Times.

Thursday was marked by yet further selling of U.S. equities, credit and emerging markets,

and this represents further fallout from the Federal Reserve's meeting on Wednesday.

The mood in markets is very, very glum.

Sentiments really poor.

We're currently looking at the worst December for the S&P 500 since 1931.

We're actually on target now for the worst quarter performance for Wall Street

since the financial crisis of 2008.

What's really driving things here is a combination. We've

had a very poor year and a lot of investors are throwing the towel before the end of

the year. Many investors are actually their performance is based on their annual returns.

annual returns are now negative for a number of assets and we're seeing investors who were hoping for some kind of end of year rally, some kind of

...