The US open failed to lift the spirits of its grumpy European counterparts, with the Dow Jones drifting away from last week’s record highs.
Despite being content to ignore the US-China trade war troubles earlier in the month, investors decided to pay attention to the latest developments over the weekend. With the latest round of tariffs coming into effect, Beijing’s cancellation of scheduled talks with Washington on Saturday, alongside China’s labelling of America as a ‘bully’, drained the markets of last week’s energy. This left the Dow Jones down more than 100 points, dragging the US index from 26700 back towards 26600.
The eurozone was similarly moody. The DAX shed more than 50 points, taking the German index below 12400, while the CAC fell 20-ish points, leaving it closer to 5450 than 5500.
As for the FTSE, it found itself caught between commodities on Monday. On the one hand, BP (LON:BP) and Shell (LON:RDSa) looked pretty pleased with themselves as Brent Crude spent the day spiking to various 4 year highs following the news that OPEC will resist Trump’s calls to cut the oil price and ahead of the impending US sanctions on Iran. On the other, the index’s mining sector appeared knackered, the likes of Anglo American (LON:AAL) and Glencore (LON:GLEN) suffering from the renewed trade anxieties.
This left the FTSE down 0.4%, not as bad as its peers, but wasting the potential rub from Brent Crude. Sterling, meanwhile, managed to rise half a percent against the dollar as it wrung all it could out of Dominic Raab’s deal-confident comments, but could only climb 0.1% against the euro.
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