With the world’s leaders arriving in Argentina for the weekend’s much-anticipated, and perhaps dreaded, G20 meeting, the European indices started to sink after the bell.
Having been among the best performers on Thursday, the FTSE was one of the worst hit as Friday got underway, falling more than 50 points to once again return to that blasted 7000 mark.
A significant chunk of that decline came from the mining sector, the likes of Rio Tinto (LON:RIO), Anglo American (LON:AAL) and Antofagasta (LON:ANTO) down anywhere between 1.3% and 2.3% following news that China’s manufacturing sector had – unexpectedly, but, you know, not that unexpectedly given the country’s trade war with the US – slowed down in November. That puts even more pressure on President Xi Jinping to try and move in the right direction with Trump in Buenos Aires, something that seems like a huge ask given the latter’s bellicose rhetoric this week.
The Eurozone indices moved in the same direction as their UK peer. The DAX and CAC both shed 0.5% as the session began, leaving the German and French bourses at 11250 and 4980 respectively.
As for the pound, after yesterday’s tumble the currency got off to a rather flat start. Against the dollar it was unchanged at $1.278, roughly in the middle of its pre- and post-dovish Jerome Powell levels, while against the euro it was up 0.1% and striving to get back above €1.123.
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