Well a severe sell-off has been on the cards for quite a few days now and today it finally arrived. The trigger point was the news earlier today that Standard & Poors, a major ratings agency, has downgraded it’s outlook on the UK economy due to mounting debt levels. This news seems to have raised concerns about the US economy as well because the markets have fallen sharply on both sides of the Atlantic.

The FTSE 100 ended the day 2.75% lower at 4345.47 whilst the DAX and CAC 40 posted similar losses ending the day down 2.74% and 2.6% at 4900.67 and 3217.41 respectively. In the US, with less than an hour to go, the Dow Jones is 2.03% lower at 8251 whilst the Nasdaq is 2.58% lower at 1683 and the S&P 500 is 2.38% lower at 882.

On the forex markets it’s been another volatile day. The GBP/USD, for instance, has traded within a range of around 380 points today. It fell all the way down to 1.5515 earlier but has since rallied strongly to trade close to it’s intraday highs at 1.5836. The EUR/USD, meanwhile has also traded higher, helped by better than expected PMI figures from across Europe, and now trades at 1.3886. The USD/JPY has traded higher today but is now around 60 points lower at 94.30.

On the commodity markets the price of gold has broken through the $950 mark and currently trades at $951 whilst the price of crude oil has fallen back slightly but still remains above $60 at $60.84.

 

 

Filed under: Market News

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