The domestically focused FTSE 250 fared even worse, falling 12.6pc over the 12 months as austerity measures and crumbling consumer confidence hit hard.
But will investors do any better in 2012? Will the UK's equity markets bounce back this year and compensate beleaguered investors for a dismal 2011?
The background noise is hardly encouraging. As my colleague Ambrose Evans Pritchard eloquently sets out, there is no quick or easy solution to the eurozone crisis - which has the potential to send London's equity markets spiralling back towards their 2009 lows of 3,600.
London managed to detach itself from the eurozone gloom last year. The FTSE performed relatively well, when compared to Germany's DAX which ended the year down more than 15pc and the French CAC which lost almost 18pc over 2011.
But could London really shrug off the exit of a peripheral euro member or even the collapse of the single currency that so many economists and politicians now predict?
Then there is the small matter of China: can the country's apparatchiks really engineer a soft landing for the over-heated economy? The latest economic data suggests it will be difficult to tackle inflation (and the property bubble driving it) without stalling economic growth.
The US could also throw London markets off course. Yes, election years have historically been good for stock markets. And we have seen more positive economics data in recent months, with fewer job losses and tentative signs of recovery in the US housing market, but few would bet on a smooth road to recovery from here.
Closer to home the prospects for the UK economy look bleak. Capital Economics is one of a number of economists that expect the UK to slip back into recession this year as the economy contracts by 0.5pc and unemployment rises above 3m.
It is hardly the best background for a market rally – so perhaps its not surprising that many expect the FTSE 100 to end 2012 even lower than it closed last year.
Even the most bullish forecasters predict just a modest rise for the benchmark FTSE 100 index in 2012. It is hard enough to find a serious commentator who predicts that the FTSE 100 will breach the 6,000 mark, let alone the 7,000-plus forecasts of only a few years ago.
Yet despite all the doom at 5,566.77 the FTSE 100 looks to be trading at historically cheap levels on a variety of measures – not least its dividend yield.
The blue chip index is yielding almost 3.5pc - double the meagre 1.75pc interest that can be earned in a National Savings account. With little prospect of interest rates rising in 2012 surely - argue the bulls - savers will be tempted to switch some of their savings into the market.
Markets have, of course, a record of catching out even the most experienced forecasters. Shortly before the 1929 stock market crash the respected economist, Irving Fisher, predicted: "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
So could the bearish forecaster be left red faced? The FTSE 100 undoubtedly has the potential to surprise on the upside this year – but you'd have to be very brave (and optimistic) to bet on it doing so.
There is however one sure-fire buy signal. Alex, the star of our daily cartoon strip. The investment banker has only been fired twice in his illustrious near-25 year career.
Both departures marked the bottom of the equity market.
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