The major stock markets look like they are going to hold on to their gains this week as we enter the final hour of the trading week. Some positive economic data from both the US and Europe has certainly helped solidify these gains.

Earlier in the day it was announced that consumer sentiment in the US came in better than expected at 66.0 whilst in Europe manufacturing PMI data beat expectations in France, Germany and Europe as a whole. There was one piece of negative news and that was UK GDP which came in 0.5% worse than expected at -0.8%, however on the whole it was a day of positive economic data.

As a result of all this the Dow Jones is currently unchanged at 9069 (having traded slightly lower earlier on) whilst the S&P 500 is down 1 point at 975 and the Nasdaq is down 16 points at 1958.

In Europe the FTSE 100 closed 16.81 points higher at 4576.81 whilst the DAX and CAC 40 both lost some ground closing 17.92 and 7.27 points lower at 5229.36 and 3366.45 respectively.

On the currency markets the GBP/USD has fallen in recent hours and is now back to 1.6426 whilst the EUR/USD has strengthened and is now up to 1.4211. After a spell of weakness the Japanese yen has recovered slightly resulting in falls for the GBP/JPY (155.65) and USD/JPY (94.73) pairs whilst the euro has strengthened against the pound and pushed the price of the EUR/GBP up to 0.8650.

Finally this week the price of gold continues to consolidate around the $950 level at $953 whilst the price of oil continues to head higher and is now up to $67.93.

 

 

Filed under: Market News

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