Europe Fails To Recover

Ivaylo
07 Jun, 2006
New York City

Interest rate worries kept hurting sentiment and led by a sharp decline in Eurozone bourses on Tuesday, a clear shift towards safer sectors was obvious with food producers, tobacco, utilities and beverages sectors advancing slightly while telecoms, engineers and miners fell. London FTSE 100 shed 0.4% in early trade while the Xetra Dax lost 0.2% and the French CAC 40 declined 0.3%.

[R]6:30AM European stocks continued the decline in mid morning trade.[/R]
European markets were lower in mid morning trade. London FTSE 100 lost 20 points, or 0.4% to 5,649.4. The Xetra Dax fell 9.1 points, or 0.2%, at 5,502.81 and the French CAC 40 dropped 14.4 points, or 0.3%, at 4,783.48. On the corporate front, Novartis gained 0.1%, after the Swiss pharmaceutical company launched a $569m bid for the UK biopharmaceutical, NeuTec Pharma. The move plans to strengthen its infectious details portfolio. Neutec traded 14.6% higher. Societe Generale lost 0.2%, after the French bank announced it was buying a 10% stake in Rosbank of Russia. The deal means that Rosbank will delay its planned flotation indefinitely.

France Telecom said that it intends to sell its majority stake in its directories business Page Jaunes as a non-core business. The sale of France Telecom’s 54% stake was expected to raise more than £3bn. Page Jaunes was the strongest gainer from the FTSE Eurotop 300, up 2.8 % higher, while France Telecom fell 0.2%.

Crude oil traded 26 cents lower at $72.24 a barrel by 0232 GMT, after shedding 10 cents on Tuesday. London Brent declined 23 cents to trade at $70.58. The dollar gained against the euro. In morning European trading, the euro purchased $1.2790, down from $1.2834 in New York on Tuesday. The British pound slid to $1.8573 from $1.8608 in New York, while the dollar advanced to buy 113.40 Japanese yen from 113.14 the day before.

[R]5:00 AM Gold and other precious metal fall on Tuesday.[/R]
August gold shed $14 to $634.70 an ounce on NYME. July silver declined 45 cents to $11.845 an ounce and July platinum ended down $22.60 at $1,235.90 an ounce. September palladium finished $12.95 lower at $351.05 an ounce. July copper contract closed 11.15 cents lower at $3.4895 per pound.

The July crude oil settled at $72.50 a barrel, down 10 cents, after plunging to $71.35. The July gasoline contract advanced 1.46 cents to $2.1788 a gallon after diving to $2.14 a gallon. On the New York Board of Trade, July Arabica coffee finished 2.35 cents lower at 96.10 cents a pound and September lost 2.35 cents to 98.90 cents a pound. July futures on raw sugar in foreign ports ended down 0.30 cent at 15.09 cents a pound while October lost 0.27 cent to 15.46 cents a pound.