While it initially appeared like a slightly better than forecast US GDP reading was going to ease the day’s losses, a tech-slide – in part prompted by Thursday’s disappointing earnings from Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) – ensured the Dow’s decline only deepened after the bell.
Dropping 400 points, the Dow jones found itself dipping under 24600, in doing so striking a fresh 3 and a half month low. In the end, the fact the US Q3 GDP number came in at 3.5% against the 3.3% expected meant little to investors, especially since that beat still sees growth down from Q2’s 4.2%.
This in turn ensured that Europe saw no let up from the morning session’s severe decline. With its losses widening to 1.6%, the FTSE found itself slipping further under 6900, and set to end the week at a 7 month low. The DAX, meanwhile, shed 190 points to continue to lurk at a 22 month nadir, with the CAC down more than 2% and approaching 4900.
It has been a truly dire week – the worst in 5 years – with an unshakeable sense of fear, ill-defined but fuelled by a nasty shopping list of geopolitical and economic problems, gripping the markets. How things proceed on Monday might well be dependent on what kind of headlines crop up over the weekend, whether or not investors have time to catch their breath before the next round of bad news.
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