| schema:articleBody
| - Oil prices slumped Thursday, a day after spiking over the closure of the Suez canal, while European and US stock markets sank on nagging pandemic and inflation fears. London, Paris and Frankfurt stocks were all lower as dealers dwelled on worries about rising Covid-19 infections, renewed restrictions, and vaccine struggles across much of Europe. Wall Street also moved lower despite US new unemployment claims last week coming in lower than expected, dropping below 700,000 for the first time since the pandemic. The drop in US first time jobless claims by nearly 100,000 over the past week, along with a fall in continuing claims by 264,000, fit "the bill of an improving economy that requires increased hiring activity and reduced layoff activity," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare. But the prospect of a strong economic rebound has been stoking fear that prices will soar, forcing central banks to wind in the ultra-low monetary policies that have supported the rally in global equities. The surge in global equities has in recent weeks appeared to have run out of steam. "For a broader market that has run really far, really fast, it looks to be ruminating about how much further things can realistically run," said O'Hare. Crude had jumped by almost six percent on Wednesday in response to a giant container ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking one of the world's busiest shipping routes. "What a single vessel can do to the global oil market is remarkable," said Rystad Energy analyst Bjornar Tonhaugen. "The stuck vessel in the Suez Canal created the visual definition of a supply route bottleneck, effectively disrupting one of the world's busiest routes for all commodities." But oil prices tumbled on Thursday, giving up those gains. "Crude prices are lower as the short-term demand outlook continues to get downgraded as many European countries seem nowhere near to easing restrictions," said OANDA analyst Edward Moya. Oil prices had tumbled by similar amounts on Tuesday on such worries about energy demand given renewed Covid-19 lockdowns. Only earlier this month oil prices struck a 14-month high -- returning to pre-pandemic levels -- on reopening optimism. West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 6.1 percent at $57.46 per barrel Brent North Sea crude: DOWN 5.3 percent at $61.03 per barrel London - FTSE 100: DOWN 1.1 percent at 6,639.62 points Frankfurt - DAX 30: DOWN 0.6 percent at 14,538.09 Paris - CAC 40: DOWN 0.6 percent at 5,912.32 EURO STOXX 50: DOWN 0.7 percent at 3,804.85 New York - Dow: DOWN 0.7 percent at 32,186.31 Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 1.1 percent at 28,729.88 (close) Hong Kong - Hang Seng: DOWN 0.1 percent at 27,899.61 (close) Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.1 percent at 3,363.59 (close) Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1787 from $1.1813 at 2200 GMT Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3725 from $1.3686 Euro/pound: DOWN at 85.90 pence from 86.31 pence Dollar/yen: UP at 109.10 yen from 108.73 yen burs-rl/lth
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)