Traders work at their desks in front of the DAX board at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange yesterday. The DAX 30 dropped 0.27% to 10,985.14 points.
AFP/London
Europe’s main stock markets fell slightly yesterday at the end of a turbulent week for equities and other financial markets, triggered by concerns over the Chinese and Greek economies.
London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index dipped 0.27% to end the day at 6,550.74 points.
In the eurozone, Frankfurt’s DAX 30 dropped 0.27% to 10,985.14 points, while the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.61% to close at 4,956.47.
Greek lawmakers finally voted through the country’s third international bailout early yesterday after a bitter all-night debate, but it gave no boost to Athens stocks which closed down 1.85%.
Eurozone finance ministers were meeting in Brussels to decide whether to endorse the deal hammered out by Athens and its international creditors.
“The remaining hurdles to the implementation of the third Greek bailout look likely to be cleared in the next few days. But the deal could unravel quite quickly if Greece fails to meet the extremely demanding economic and fiscal conditions upon which it rests,” wrote Capital Economics in its weekly European economics report, which also noted new data reflecting weakening eurozone GDP expansion.
Official eurozone data yesterday showed that growth in the 19-nation single-currency bloc slowed slightly in the second quarter to 0.3%, coming in at the bottom end of analyst forecasts.
“A swathe of disappointing GDP figures from across the eurozone... merely served to compound the current lack of appetite for risk,” said Spreadex analyst Connor Campbell.
In foreign exchange yesterday, the euro slumped to $1.1110 from $1.1152 late in New York on Thursday.
Elsewhere, Asian stock markets mainly fell yesterday, weighed down by jitters over the impact of China’s yuan devaluation.
Faced with market concerns, China’s central bank raised the value of the yuan against the dollar by 0.05%. The higher fixing came after the People’s Bank of China reassured financial markets by pledging to seek a stable currency after a shock devaluation of nearly 2% on Tuesday.
That cut, and two subsequent reductions, sent global financial markets into a tailspin as it raised questions over the health of the world’s second-largest economy and sparked fears of a possible currency war.
US stocks mostly rose yesterday following US data that showed slightly stronger-than-expected wholesale inflation
Around mid-day in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood 0.22% lower at 17,447.71 points.
The broad-based S&P 500 edged up 0.10% to 2,085.52 points, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 0.14% to 5,026.38.
The Labour Department said its producer price index (PPI) rose 0.2% in July, just above the 0.1% increase projected by analysts.
The Federal Reserve has spotlighted the need for stronger inflation as a leading condition to hike interest rates.
