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Europe down, but still a believer

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by Peter Switzer

Four days after the EU summit, European stock markets have given some ground following a three-day rally but the extent of the sell-off indicates that well-placed traders and investors are still believers! In what? That’s easy — the EU summit’s commitment to the banks of Europe and more growth at the expense of excessive austerity.
This comes ahead of the European Central Bank policy meeting tomorrow where some pundits expect or hope for a cut in interest rates. The summit’s undertakings, some argue, make it easier for the ECB to ease monetary policy a notch and economically, as well as psychologically, it looks entirely a wise option.

Of course, the Yanks are on a 4^th of July public holiday and that’s why the focus is so Euro-focused.

European stock markets lower

The FTSE gave up 0.06 per cent, the CAC 40 in France lost 0.11 per cent and the German DAX shed 0.2 per cent, but they were all down a lot more in early trade, so the finishes underline how positive the markets are at the moment.
However, if the rate cut fails to turn up, it will be a test for these markets and it is noteworthy that both Spain’s and Italy’s bourses were down over 0.7 per cent, so there is a little nervousness in the markets of the more exposed economies.

By the way a Bloomberg survey says out of 62 economists, 11 saw no change, five tipped a 0.5 per cent cut while the rest looked for 0.25 per cent cut of the official rate to 0.75 per cent.

Focus on jobs data

Meanwhile in the USA, jobs data will be the focus for the next two days and not so great news is expected. If it’s bad news, the market could cop that but if it’s shocking news, then Wall Street could go all US-centric and selloff big time.

We won’t hear about it until late Friday night but 90,000 jobs is the economist’s tip for June. Anything better than this could be a great boost to the market while anything too far south of this number could rock it.

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Published on: Thursday, July 05, 2012