After two days of growth, at the beginning of today’s trading on European exchanges, stock prices fell by more than 1 percent, with the energy sector under pressure due to falling oil prices.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index of leading European stocks fell by 1.2 percent this morning, to 823 points, after rising by 8.9 percent on Monday and 0.6 percent on Tuesday. The London FTSE and Paris CAC indices also fell by more than 1 percent, while the Frankfurt DAX was down 0.9 percent around 9:45 AM. European investors were not encouraged by yesterday’s rise in stock prices on Wall Street, driven by the new Fed program aimed at normalizing lending.
"The new move by the U.S. central bank has not particularly affected the market because you cannot force banks to lend if they do not want to. The market is expecting data that would indicate a slowdown in the rate of economic decline. If there are signs of stabilization, the market will rise," says Bernard McAlinden, a strategist at the Irish company NCB Stockbrokers. Due to the new drop in oil prices, caused by fears of declining demand due to a weakening global economy, prices in the energy sector fell significantly this morning. Shares of Total, ENI, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell fell between 1.5 and 2.5 percent. The Nikkei index on the Tokyo Stock Exchange fell by 1.3 percent this morning, to 8,213 points. (H)
