All-time highs on Wall Street failed to yield the same in Europe, with the markets drifting lower after the bell.
Closing at a 13-month high – i.e. its best price since just before the UK’s first lockdown – last night, the FTSE followed that up by falling 0.2%. Not enough to properly endanger its recent rise, but still a knock to any momentum the index had been building this week.
What makes the FTSE’s minor dip more interesting was that it came alongside another slip from sterling, which was down 0.3% against the dollar and 0.1% against the euro.
The same vaccine and third wave concerns that infected the pound this week may be creeping their way over to the blue-chip index. This in light of the WHO’s warning on Thursday that it is the lockdown measures in place since Christmas, and not the vaccine rollout, that has supressed covid-19 cases in the UK – a worry given the recent easing, and daily case numbers that, whilst falling, still number in the thousands.
The tone was similarly muted in the Eurozone. The DAX remained the wrong side of 15,200 as it fell 0.2%, with the CAC flat a few points short of 6,170.
The Dow Jones, on the other hand, is looking to add 50 or so points this afternoon, an increase that would lift it to 33,550, and put it back in all-time high territory.
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