Stock Market Indices See Mild Gains Ahead of Italian Bond Auction
As the sun rises on the final day of the trading week, the FTSE 100 is up slightly, but the atmosphere remains nervous.
For the second successive day, the morning focus is on a debt auction by one of the Eurozone’s more troublesome members.
Today, Italy is selling its debt, with the bulls hoping that Rome can emulate Madrid’s success yesterday.
The auction saw yields fall, prompting the bulls to snort approvingly, but demand also dropped, which gave bears something to roar about.
Ultimately, stock market indices remained somewhat unimpressed, with the FTSE 100 remaining some distance from its early morning highs.
Today’s blow-up is engineer Invensys, rudely shoved out of the leading index by Glencore in May last year, down 23% after a profit warning.
Looking ahead to the US open, US futures are slightly down, with the Dow expected to start around 12 points lower.
The first reading of the January Michigan confidence index is out later today, while JPMorgan Chase is the first of the major American banks to report its quarterly figures.
An optimistic outlook from the bank could breathe new life into the markets, which have yet to push out of the narrow trading range seen so far in 2012.
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Financial Market Comments from Chris Beauchamp, Market Analyst, IG Index.
The above comments do not constitute investment advice and Clean Financial accepts no responsibility for any use that may be made of them.
Content provided by IG Index which is Authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. FSA Register number 114059.
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