The stock markets have been fairly quiet today as everyone seems to be awaiting further news on just how serious the swine flu outbreak may be. The latest global health scare has resulted in airline and travel stocks being sold off today, however, and both the Mexican stock market and the Mexican Peso have fallen sharply, as you might expect.

Pharmaceutical shares have performed well today for obvious reasons, but on the whole the stock markets have either fallen slightly or traded close to their opening levels.

The FTSE 100 and DAX ended the day 11.02 and 19.75 points higher at 4167.01 and 4694.07 respectively whilst the CAC was pretty much unchanged. In the US, meanwhile, the major indices have traded slightly lower today with the Dow Jones finishing down 51.29 points at 8025.00, the S&P 500 down 8.72 points at 857.51 and the Nasdaq down 14.88 points at 1679.41.

On the currency markets, the Mexican Peso has fallen sharply against the other major pairs, as I’ve already mentioned, but with regard to the major currency pairs, the GBP/USD and USD/JPY pairs are both trading close to their opening levels. The EUR/USD is the one major pair that has been sold off and is now close to the all-important 1.30 level at 1.3034.

On the commodity markets the oil price has fallen back to $50.15 whilst the price of gold has also fallen, somewhat surprisingly, and currently trades at $906.50.

 

 

Filed under: Market News

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