After things got ugly on Monday, the markets have settled for a less angry shade of red this Tuesday morning.
Like yesterday, the FTSE managed to avoid the losses seen elsewhere, and once again had its banking sector to thank. HSBC (NYSE:HSBC) rose 6% after the bell as it revealed a 36% drop in pre-tax profits to $3.1 billion in Q3. That sounds bad, but compared to the $2.1 billion forecast by analysts, it was as big as a win as you’re going to get in the current climate.
This left the UK index down just 0.1%, keeping it the wrong side of 5800, and not too far away from its recent 5-month lows.
Following a hell of a start to the week, with the index dropping more than 400 points thanks to the collapse of software firm SAP, the DAX saw a more manageable 35 point decline in the early moments of Tuesday’s trading.
The CAC, on the other hand, tumbled another 0.9%, as France set a new daily case record of 52,000 on Monday.
Looking ahead to this afternoon and, having lost 650 points on Monday, the Dow Jones is heading for a flat start to the session, the index hovering around the 27,700 mark. It is now only 7 days until the US election – however, the Dow barely has time to consider the vote. Before it can start to think about the future of American democracy, it has to get through earnings updates from Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), a Q3 GDP reading on Thursday, and, worst of all, a week’s worth of covid-19 headlines.
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