EUROPE’S MAIN STOCK markets turned in a mixed, lacklustre performance today, with Wall Street closed for a holiday and China turning in disappointing growth data.
London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index ended the day up 0.11 per cent at 6,836.73 points, while Frankfurt’s DAX 30 slid 0.28 per cent to 9,715.9 points and the CAC 40 in Paris dipped 0.11 per cent to 4,322.86 points.
Milan nudged up 0.02 per cent, while Madrid gave up 0.11 per cent.
In Dublin, the ISEQ dropped by 4.93 points.
“European markets have continued where they left off at the end of last week drifting sideways, but with a slight downward bias in fairly listless trade in the absence of US markets,” which were closed for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, said market analyst Michael Hewson at CMC Markets UK.
He said the upside was “capped due to a negative Asia session after Chinese economic data failed to inspire, while Deutsche Bank followed in the footsteps of some of its US peers last week by disappointing the markets, by releasing a profits warning over the weekend.”
Markus Huber, senior analyst at brokers Peregrine & Black, said that “considering that markets have risen sharply in the past few weeks today’s disappointing news by Deutsche Bank and out of China might serve as a welcome excuse to take some profits and money off the table.”.
China’s economy last year registered flat growth of 7.7 percent, maintaining its slowest expansion in more than a decade as the government warned Monday of “deep-rooted problems” including a mountain of local authority debt.
“The latest Chinese economic data published this morning showed that real GDP growth slowed to 7.7 percent … though many policymakers, especially in the semi-depressed eurozone, would be over-joyed to have such growth rates,” noted Neil MacKinnon, economist at financial group VTB Capital.
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