European stock markets fall and close a brutal year with weakness

By: News Team

Published on:

European stock markets fall and close a brutal year with weakness

European stock markets fell on Friday, and investors were cautious about the end of a brutal year marked by Russia’s war in Ukraine, rising inflation and tightening monetary policy.

At 03:15 ET (08:15 GMT), the DAX index in Germany it was trading 0.6% down, the CAC 40 in France it was trading 0.6% down, and the FTSE 100 in the UK it fell by 0.4%.

European stocks are heading for their worst year since 2018, with the pan-European index STOXX 600 poised to fall about 12% this year, its worst performance since a 13% annual drop in 2018.

The new year is also likely to be tricky for European equities, at least initially, as European Central Bank He has made it clear that he will continue to raise short-term interest rates, continuing his fight against inflation close to record levels.

This is likely to cause the Eurozone to enter recession in early 2023, while Bank of England he has already said that the UK economy is in what he has projected as a prolonged recession.

Data released Friday showed that House prices in Great Britain fell 0.1% in December compared with November, the fourth consecutive price drop of monthly and its worst streak since 2008, according to mortgage lender Nationwide.

In terms of annual, house price growth slowed to 2.8% in December, down from 4.4% in November.

Spanish CPI House prices rose 5.8% year-on-year in December, up from 6.8% the previous month, but still rose 0.3% in December. month.

Investors will also be keeping an eye on developments in China, a key export market for European companies, as the world’s second-largest economy lifts strict control and lockdown measures put in place since the start of the pandemic three years ago.

This has led to a surge in COVID cases, fueling concern around the world about the emergence of new variants. This has resulted in several countries, including the US and Italy, adopting mandatory testing and entry restrictions for travellers from China.

Economic activity is likely to suffer in the short term, before the outbreak stabilizes.

Oil prices rose on Friday, following losses from the previous session, and are on track to end the year with modest gains.

U.S. crude oil inventories Oil rose by a modest 718,000 barrels last week, according to data from Energy Information Management, published on Thursday.

This increase came as a surprise after the industry body American Petroleum Institute report a decrease of 1.3 million barrels.

By 03:20 ET, the futures of petroleum They were trading 0.6% higher at $78.79 a barrel, while the Brent It rose 0.5% to $83.89.

However, the U.S. contract is on track to post a 4.5% rise in 2022 and Brent a 7.6% increase, in a year marked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which sparked supply concerns.

In addition, the gold was down 0.1% at $1,823.85/oz, while EUR/USD It fell back to 1.0660.

Leave a Comment