Heavy selling in London and Europe as trading begins, while investors head for 'safe haven' assets
Stock markets took fright on Wednesday as fears grew over the health of the global economy and the ongoing European debt crisis.
There was heavy selling in London when trading began, sending the blue-chip FTSE 100 index falling by 91 points, or 1.6%, to 5626. There were also heavy losses across Europe, The French CAC and German DAX indices were down 1.6% and 1.1% respectively.
The European markets took their cue from Tuesday's 2.2% fall in the US Dow Jones index. Overnight, the Japanese Nikkei fell 2.1%, its biggest daily loss since the rout that followed Japan's March earthquake.
Investors again headed for "safe haven" assets, with the price of gold hitting a new record high of $1,664.9 an ounce on Wednesday morning. The Swiss Franc also rallied to fresh highs, prompting the Swiss central bank to announce it will "take measures" to drive the currency down.
In France, shares in Soci�t� G�n�rale were briefly suspended following a profits warning, after the bank slashed the value of its Greek debt.
Traders warned that any optimism following the resolution of the US debt ceiling crisis had now vanished, in the face of a stream of disappointing economic news.
"Equity markets are thundering lower," said Cameron Peacock, market analyst at IG Markets. "With the US economy still incredibly fragile, the [US debt] compromise that was reached seems unlikely to provide much new stimulus and arguably if the US flounders then other nations will struggle too. Arguably now that the US hasn't defaulted the attention can swing back to the finer points, but each piece of data that falls short is likely to hit markets again."
Italian and Spanish government debt remained under pressure. The yields, or interest rates, demanded by traders to hold their 10-year bonds remained near the euro-ero highs reachedon tuesday.
In contrast, the yield on Britain's 10-year bonds remained near the record lows reached on Tuesday, as Britain became a safe haven.
China also piled pressure on America, with the Chinese central bank governor urging the US to take "responsible" measures to deal with its debt issues.
Economic woes
On Monday stock markets had rallied after the announcement of a deal to resolve the US debt crisis, but fears that the global economic recovery is faltering now appear to be uppermost in investors' minds.
US consumer spending fell in June for the first time in nearly two years, and incomes barely rose, data released on Tuesday said. Manufacturing data released on Monday showed renewed weakness around the world.
The bad news came even as the major credit ratings agencies re-affirmed the United States' triple-A credit rating.
Moody's and Fitch both maintained the top rating for the US government, while warning that the situation was still under review. Moody's has assigned a negative outlook to its AAA rating, suggesting a downgrade is possible in the next year to 18 months. Fitch is to carry out a more detailed review of the US position by the end of the month.
Standard & Poor's, which has been tougher on the US than the other two agencies, has yet to decide whether to downgrade.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/aug/03/stock-markets-global-economy
Lee Carsley Radio industry Bank of England Argentina Dmitry Medvedev Alex Reid
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