Even with the Dow Jones losing some of its swagger, the European indices clung fiercely to their optimistic rally on Thursday.
Thought the Dow did indeed add another 100 or so points, pushing it above 25650, it was initially expected to double that at the open. Well, it had good reason not to do so.
Once again the weekly jobless claims reading came in worse than forecast, hitting 2.123 million for the 7-day period ending May 23rd. That puts the total number of Americans who have filed for unemployment since mid-March at over 40 million. Forty! Million!
On top of that came a revised first quarter GDP reading – and not in the direction investors would have wanted. According to these latest figures, the US economy contracted by 5% at the annualised rate, worse than the initial -4.8% estimate.
None of this bothered the European markets. Nor did news of rising covid-19 cases in South Korea. Nor the increasingly troubling situation between China and Hong Kong (and therefore the USA).
For the FTSE, it had to overcome the heavy losses incurred by Standard Chartered (LON:STAN) and HSBC, which fell 4.4% and 3.4% respectively on the China-Hong Kong developments. That didn’t stop the UK index from climbing 90 points, sauntering past 6225 for the first time since early March.
The DAX warmed up as the session went on, added 150 points to hit 11800, while the CAC really let rip, surging 2.2% to strike 4775.
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