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The European rally is over
Reuters
The brief rally in European markets came to an abrupt halt on Tuesday, as two days of gains ended and red numbers prevailed on stock boards across the continent.
At the close on Tuesday, all but one of Europe's major index are in the red, although falls were limited. No single index dropped more than 0.9%.
The FTSE 100, Britain's flagship index, was the only major bourse to end the day in the positive, closing up by 0.72% at 5,866 points.
The FTSE was helped higher by the likes of Rolls-Royce and Merlin Entertainments, although no individual stock gained more than 3% on the day. British stocks were also buoyed a little by the release of inflation figures for January, which met economist's forecasts at 0.3%.
While the FTSE gained, the biggest loser was the DAX in Germany, which dropped by 0.83% to 9,130 points. The index was pushed lower by the release of a ZEW survey showing that economic sentiment is at a 16-month low in the country. Here's how that looked at the close:
Here's how that looked at the close:
ReutersThings weren't much better for the rest of Europe's biggest economies on Tuesday. Here's the scoreboard:
Italy's FTSE MIB: -0.42%
France's CAC 40: -0.05%
Eurostoxx 50: -0.49%
The Netherlands' AEX: -0.16%
Spain's IBEX 35: -0.52%
One driver of the European fall was oil's return to losses on Tuesday as the markets reacted poorly to news that Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations agreed to freeze oil production. A cut in production had widely been expected early this morning.
Brent, the European benchmark, was 3.11% in the red at the close, trading at $32.35, while West Texas Intermediate had dropped off to $29.10, a fall of 1.2%.
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