A mixed, muted session became slightly more negative after the US open, as Wednesday night’s Fed meeting minutes came into play.
In the record of September’s get-together the central bank signalled ‘further gradual increases’ to interest rates, ignoring the repeated criticisms made by Donald Trump without ever mentioning the President by name (the comments came before the market freak-out seen in October). This, relatively gently, reignited the market concerns about such a course, with the Dow Jones dropping between 70 and 140 points as the bell rang on Wall Street.
This failed to make a float-y set of European indices follow the same narrative. The CAC managed to rise 0.2%, while the DAX reversed its initial gains to sink 0.3%. The FTSE added 20 points able to eke out some growth as sterling’s decline compensated for the index’s commodity losses.
The pound had been fairly resilient during the morning, avoiding building on Wednesday’s decline despite the bitter taste of Brexit and a far worse than forecast UK retail sales reading. However, a strengthening dollar and a general sense of exhaustion eventually dragged the currency down 0.3% against the greenback, with cable under $1.308, and 0.2% against the euro.
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