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A basket of European bourses fell across the board on Friday with regional pan-European STOXX 600 tracking its worst monthly decline since October 2020 after plunging for a fourth straight week in a row as autos and tech stocks took the heavy beating amid growing likelihoods of a higher interest rate alongside mounting angsts over Ukraine issue. In point of fact, a hawkish tone from US Federal Reserve at its Jan 25-26 policy meet seems to have tuned up the tone of global equity markets this week, as the so-called growth stocks such as tech shares took a tattering header. Adding further strains, Goldman Sachs said on Friday that it was expecting as many as five rate hikes this year, swaying investors from bargain hunting after a tumultuous week. Meanwhile, addressing to geopolitical hobbles alongside a hawkish Fed, an AJ Bell financial analyst, Danni Hewson said, “There's a whole lot to make investors nervous at the moment, and today seems to be the day European markets are really waking up to what the Fed's increasingly hawkish stance will mean for all that cash sloshing around”.
STOXX 600 tracks worst month since Oct 2020
Citing statistics, in the day’s European market closure, the Pan-European STOXX 600 dropped 1.0 per cent after opening up the session as much as 2.0 per cent lower. The Index had declined 1.8 per cent this week, remarking the worst drop in more than eight week and a fourth straight weekly percentage decline, too.
London’s blue-chip FTSE 100 faltered 1.17 per cent to 7,466.07, French CAC 40 dropped 0.82 per cent to 6,965.88 and Frankfurt’s DAX dwindled 1.32 per cent to 15,318.95. Elsewhere in the Europe, Italy’s FTSE MIB muzzled 1.18 per cent to 26,565.41 and Madrid’s benchmark IBEX 35 shed 1.10 per cent to 8,609.80.
Over the week, London’s FTSE 100 shed 0.37 per cent, French CAC 40 curbed 1.45 per cent and Frankfurt’s DAX had dropped as much as 1.83 per cent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB lost 1.83 per cent and Madrid’s IBEX 35 fell 0.98 per cent.