European Markets Stable After Falls
Today, 21/01/2016, Europe markets opened a bit higher after yesterday saw a global turmoil with billions wiped off the value of shares.
London’s FTSE 100 share index, which monitors the share prices of the 100 most valuable companies trading on the London stock exchange, rose to 0.5% in the first few minutes of opening.
Earlier in the day, Japan’s main share index closed down by more than 2%.
Investors are continuing to be concerned over slide in oil prices and slow growth in China.
On Wednesday, global stock markets suffered huge losses with London’s FTSE 100 losing 3.5%.
It has now entered a “bear market”, due to falling 20% from the record high in April 2015.
However, the opening trading on Thursday saw the FTSE 100 up 31.78 points at 5,705.36.
Oil market
The big concern with oil prices continue as they remained weak on Thursday, having resulted in their lowest levels since 2003 in the prior trading session.
Crude prices rose slightly as they climbed to $28-a-barrel mark but Brent crude fell back to $27.79.
US crude traded at $28.23 a barrel, which was a slight increase on the below $27 traded on Wednesday.
Crude oil prices have been falling since the middle of 2014, but oil-producing countries have maintained output despite the decline, contributing to the excess supplies on the market.
Earlier in the week, the International Energy Agency warned that oil markets could “drown in oversupply” in 2016.
‘Good shape’
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 share index was down 2.4% and China’s Shanghai Composite ended the day down 3.2%.
On Wednesday, US shares had also been hit, with the Dow Jones closing 1.6% lower after a turbulent trading day.
However, Patrick Thomson from JP Morgan Asset Management stated to the BBC that investors should not be alarmed.
“If you look at the US economy particularly, that is actually in pretty good shape,” he said.
“You look at all of the data coming out recently, clearly growth is a little muted and corporate earnings are somewhat lower than expected due to energy prices and the strong dollar, but underlying fundamentals, particularly the US consumer, is in very good shape.”
That message was backed up by analysts Capital Economics, which said: “Despite the prevailing gloom about the world economy, we think global growth will pick up from around 2.5% last year to 3% in both 2016 and 2017, using our own estimates for China.”
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