Shares took a pounding today as they ended the quarter with sharp fall on the back of renewed worries over Greece and a rate hike in the US.

Despite the FTSE100 declining 118.39pt or 1.7% to 6,773.04 it still managed to make its biggest quarterly gain since 2013 and is up 3.2% this year.

Imperial Tobacco fell 3.4% and British American Tobacco 2.9% on concern that a merger of US groups Reynolds and Lorillard might fall through.

The index was otherwise supported by shares in Kingfisher, Europe’s biggest home improvement retailer and owner of the B&Q chain, which rose 4.3% to close as top riser.

It said it would close 60 underperforming stores in Britain while returning £200 million  to investors during the coming financial year.