Traders are seen at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The DAX index yesterday shed 0.20% to 9,490.55 points after disappointing German consumer confidence data and a drop in shares of Allianz.
Europe’s main stock markets moved in mixed directions yesterday while the euro continued to slide against the dollar.
London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index ended the day with a gain of 0.15% at 6,649.39 points while in Paris, the CAC 40 climbed 0.91% to 4,394.75 points.
However Frankfurt’s DAX index shed 0.20% to 9,490.55 points after disappointing German consumer confidence data and a drop in shares in Allianz after its bond unit Pimco lost its chief.
Madrid’s IBEX 35 index added 0.63% after Spain raised its growth and cut its unemployment forecasts.
“Panic selling beset US markets and crossed the Atlantic yesterday but volatility contracted today in a sluggish session of trading for European markets which traded modestly higher despite a drop in German consumer confidence,” said Jasper Lawler, an analyst at CMC Markets UK.
GfK’s headline German household confidence index fell to 8.6 points in September and was forecast to fall to 8.3 points next month.
The DAX was also dragged down by a 6.2% drop in the value of shares in financial services giant Allianz to €128.20 after the chief of its bond unit Pimco unit, a key contributor to profits, quit.
Bill Gross, who built Pimco into the world’s largest bond investor and wielded outsized influence for years in the capital markets, is leaving the firm for rival Janus Capital group.
There has also not been enough positive news to push markets up, and the approaching end of the quarter may have some investors keen to book profits.
“The problem many investors are facing is that besides weaker economic growth there is also a lack of new impulses in general which would cause stocks to break through to the upside and post new highs,” said Markus Huber, senior trader at brokers Peregrine & Black.
“Strongly rebounding economic growth or better-than-expected corporate profits would be needed as potential catalysts to draw new money into the markets.”
US stocks moved higher yesterday, rallying after Thursday’s losses following solid data on second quarter economic growth.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.34% to 17,003.50 points in midday trading.
The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.21% to 1,970.11, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.31% to 4,480.73.
The Commerce Department upwardly revised second-quarter economic growth to an annual rate of 4.6%, from 4.2%.
US stocks had turned negative on Thursday, led by a sell-off in Apple, which has been hit by complaints about its new operating system and latest iPhone models.
In foreign exchange trading yesterday, the European single currency slid to $1.297 from $1.2750 late in New York on Thursday. The euro had at one point tumbled at one point in afternoon trading to $1.2678 to record its lowest level since November 2012.
“The US dollar maintained its strength after the GDP print interpreting the increased growth as a sign that the Federal Reserve will act to raise interest rates before other nations,” said Lawler.
The euro is coming under pressure from concerns about weak eurozone growth, while the dollar is benefiting from US Federal Reserve plans to bring to a stop its stimulus programme in October as well as investors betting rate hikes may happen sooner than Fed officials have indicated.
The euro dipped against the British pound, to 78.09 pence from 78.14 on Thursday. The pound slid to $1.6259 from $1.6316.
On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold was steady at $1,213.75 an ounce.
The Russian ruble fell to a record weak level of 39.10 the dollar, breaking through the level of 39 to the greenback for the first time ever.
The new record low, leaving the ruble down nearly a fifth since the start of the year, came as a court stripped a prominent businessman of his stake in an oil company in a case reminiscent of former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky being jailed for a decade and having the Yukos oil company taken from him following accusations of corruption.