World Stocks Largely Down To Round Off Week

By Stewart Douglas

Stock markets across Europe and the US have tonight closed down on the start of trade, after a day of fairly mixed economic news led to an overall gloomier picture of the world economy.

News of US consumers continuing to spend was a welcome relief from the woes of recent months, and a sign that the US economy may not be as troubled as many analysts had thoughts.  Conversely German consumer spending was down on the day, and global oil markets suffered yet another day of upwards price pressure.

Overall the mood tended to be down with the threat of global inflationary pressures derived from inflated oil trading at the forefront of analyst thinking, which saw markets tend to trade negatively across the board.

In London, the FTSE 100 was amongst the heaviest losers of the day despite not suffering too badly from the sell-offs.  By the closing bell, the FTSE exchange was down by 19.60 points to close at 6466.8, after what has been a largely successful week of trade.

In the US, both major stock exchanges saw a downturn on the day, but again only marginally to round off largely positive weeks.  The Dow Jones leading index lost 17.31 points on the day to close down on the bell, finishing at 13895.6.  Meanwhile the NASDAQ exchange was down 8.09 points, closing at 2701.5.  The S&P 500 was down 4.63 points to 1526.8.

European markets enjoyed mixed trading on the day as a result of a combination of economic indicators, which could have seen results swing in either direction.

In Paris, the CAC 40 exchange was up there with the FTSE in terms of losses, closing down by a proportionately high 17.68 points against a value of 5715.7.

Finally, the DAX exchange in Germany was the only major exchange to buck the overall trend, coming in up marginally by 7.72 points on the day to 7861.5.