| schema:articleBody
| - Stock markets sustained further losses Friday, capping a painful week for global equities characterised by fears over surging infections, stuttering vaccine rollouts and the weak economic backdrop. Traders have been licking their wounds after the worst reversal since October, following a months-long rally that saw several indices strike record or multi-year highs. "Markets began January on a high, but are going out in the opposite mood, with no sign of any real rebound in sentiment so far," said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at online trading firm IG. "However, while the losses have been quick and dramatic, as they usually are, they have only dented the rally from November, not wiped it out entirely." Europe's main stock markets fell sharply, with Paris closing down two percent. Wall Street's main indices were down more than one percent in late morning trading. The dollar and oil prices traded mixed. Meanwhile, Bitcoin spiked to a two-week peak at $38,372.03 after Tesla chief Elon Musk changed his Twitter profile to "#bitcoin". "To some, this will be yet more evidence of the bubbly nature of markets, awash with stimulus money and populated by eager day traders determined to make some quick money," said Beauchamp. That has been particularly true in equities markets, where recent days have seen a David-and-Goliath battle between chatroom-inspired retail traders and Wall Street hedge-fund investors, centred on struggling US video game retailer GameStop. Wall Street hedge-fund investors had short-sold GameStop shares -- basically betting they would fall -- but the action of retail investors forced them higher. The saga has seen a number of professional dealers lose billions of dollars as shares in GameStop and certain other stocks spiked higher. "Fear is running through the equity markets again as some trading apps have relaxed restrictions on certain stocks that have experienced colossal volatility recently, like Gamestop," said David Madden at CMC Markets UK. "There are concerns that we could see frenzied trading again by retail players in selected stocks and that could renew fears that some hedge funds might adopt a cut-and-run policy, hence why equity markets are lower across the board," he added. Meanwhile, economic data out of Europe did not exactly help sentiment, even if the numbers better than investors had been expecting. Data showed that the French economy shrank 1.3 percent in the fourth quarter, which was better than market expectations of a 4.0-percent slump. The powerhouse German economy grew by a marginal 0.1 percent, just ahead of forecasts of zero growth. Data out on Thursday showed that the US economic recovery was also running out of steam. New York - Dow: DOWN 1.3 percent at 30,203.33 points EURO STOXX 50: DOWN 2.1 percent at 3,481.44 London - FTSE 100: DOWN 1.8 percent at 6,407.46 (close) Frankfurt - DAX 30: DOWN 1.7 percent at 13,432.87 (close) Paris - CAC 40: DOWN 2.0 percent at 5,399.21 (close) Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 1.9 percent at 27,663.39 (close) Hong Kong - Hang Seng: DOWN 0.9 percent at 28,283.71 (close) Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.6 percent at 3,483.07 (close) Euro/dollar: UP at $1.2139 from $1.2122 at 2200 GMT Dollar/yen: UP at 104.70 yen from 104.24 yen Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3718 from $1.3721 Euro/pound: UP at 88.51 pence from 88.34 pence West Texas Intermediate: DOWN less than 0.1 percent at $52.33 per barrel Brent North Sea crude: UP 0.6 percent at $55.88 per barrel burs-rl/spm
|
![[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)