European shares fell on Monday in their first day of trade since the Christmas break, with a sharp decline in crude oil prices putting pressure on energy stocks such as Repsol REP.MC and Total TOTF.PA .
Advertisement
Flooding shuts down major interstate near St. Louis
On Wednesday night, officers began rerouting traffic on I-55 at the Meramec as crews pumped water and piled sandbags. The human toll so far: At least 20 people dead over several days in Missouri and IL , the Associated Press reported.
In economic news, United Kingdom house prices increased the most in eight months in December as a strong labor market underpinned buyer demand amid shortage of properties.
Don’t Let Uber Surge Pricing Ruin Your New Year’s Eve
Or you can stick it out, keep partying, and wait a few hours, since Uber expects the worst surges to be between 12:30 and 4 a.m. On days after holidays when demand for Uber is high, sticker-shocked customers complain about their Uber bills.
Vodafone was higher, however, on renewed speculation the company is in talks about a merger with USA cable company Liberty Global.
Bill Cosby charged with sexual assault for the first time
Seven of the women filed civil suits against Cosby, saying that his claim they allegedly lied has tarnished their reputations. The release of the testimony set off a torrent of allegations from other women that all but destroyed Cosby’s good-guy image.
The modest losses followed a downbeat session on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq dropped 117 and 42 points, respectively. Japan was one of those off, though it was also one of the better performers this year with gains of nearly 10 percent for the TOPIX.
“European markets still remain the place to invest, with the ECB pumping more money into the system”, said Aslam.
Japan, like the euro zone, is well entrenched in monetary easing.
The MSCI All-World Index was down 0.3 percent, on track to close the year with a loss of about 4 percent.
European stocks rose and euro zone bond yields edged up on Tuesday as oil prices stabilized above 11-year lows on the back of prospects for lower temperatures on both sides of the Atlantic.
The outperformance in European and Japanese equities has a lot to do with a strengthening dollar, which has weakened their currencies over the last few years and made their exporters more competitive. The euro nudged up 0.1 percent to $1.0977.
Against a basket of currencies, the dollar was flat at 98.212. The two-year yield rose to 1.05 percent, compared with 0.68 percent at the beginning of the year.
The slide in oil has been the standout in 2015.
U.S. crude fell 2.8 percent to $36.82 a barrel, while Brent fell 2.8 percent to $36.72 a barrel, after an unusually large build in U.S. stockpiles; inventories rose 2.6 million barrels last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. It’s set for a slump of almost 37 percent for 2015, having shed 48 percent in the previous year, as a global supply glut shows no sign of abating. “We would put that down to most market participants being out of the market at the moment”, he said.
Advertisement
The relentless decline in oil hit currencies of commodity-rich countries including the Russian rouble, Canadian dollar, Norwegian crown, Brazilian real and Mexican peso.
