US and UK Financial Markets Struggle Amid Negative Climate
Financial Market Comments from David Jones, Chief Market Strategist, IG Index.
In mid-morning trading UK shares are falling steadily, with the UK’s flagship FTSE 100 index down around 60 points at 10am.
Indeed financial markets are weaker across the board, following falls across Asian markets last night, though the Dow Jones managed to edge 14 points higher.
The influential US consumer confidence index fell sharply on Tuesday, surprising analysts who had anticipated little change or a small rise.
Added to this, UK financials are struggling today – RBS, Lloyds and Barclays are all around 3% weaker – after Australia’s national bank reported worse-than-expected bad debt figures.
Investors were also hit with a third blow after BG Group unveiled a 44% drop in third-quarter profit, its share price sliding 2%.
For the moment financial markets have clearly stagnated, with a realisation hitting home that all the warnings of a return to growth being a long and painfully slow process are not just hot air.
The huge growth in unemployment on both sides of the Atlantic is certainly hard to ignore, and has clearly affected the latest US consumer outlook.
The FTSE has now slid to a three-week low, while the Dow Jones is struggling to tread water above the 10,000 level.
There is a growing sense that the comeback has been too much, and the question is whether the FTSE can now hold steady amid the current negativity.
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Good Luck!
DB
The above comments do not constitute investment advice Clean Financial accepts no responsibility for any use that may be made of them.
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