Weekly Market Monitor
Weekly Market Monitor - 6 February 2012
Signs of an improvement in the US economy and an absence of bad news from Europe helped global equities stage their strongest weekly rally in several months. A surge in hiring in the US economy drove the Nasdaq index to an 11-year high on Friday, as optimism grew that the jobs market is on a steady path to recovery. Technology stocks gained a further boost as Facebook ’s long-awaited IPO filing drove a two-day rally in internet names. The US dollar rose against the euro, the pound and the yen as investors speculated that the positive signal on the US economy would lessen the chance of a further round of quantitative easing.
European stocks closed at their highest in more than six months, while the FTSE 100 closed at its highest since last August. For the second week in a row, government bonds rallied as talks continued over the eurozone debt crisis with private creditors to Greece coming closer to an agreement on the country’s debt. However, the week’s news wasn’t all positive, as Portuguese government bond yields surged to much the same levels that forced Greece to ask the EU for a second bail-out last year.
Equity market returns last week:
| Market and index | % change last week |
Market and index | % change last week |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSCI World | 2.02 | Netherlands: All Share | 2.31 |
| MSCI EM | 2.13 | Italy: FTSE MIB | 3.09 |
| US: Dow Jones | 1.59 | Switzerland: SMI | 1.99 |
| US: S&P 500 | 2.17 | Spain: IBEX 35 | 2.36 |
| US NASDAQ | 3.16 | Sweden: OMX | 3.58 |
| MSCI Europe | 3.05 | Japan Nikkei | -0.11 |
| UK: FTSE All Share | 2.99 | MSCI Asia Pacific ex Japan | 0.87 |
| UK: FTSE 100 | 2.92 | Hong Kong: Hang Seng | 1.25 |
| Germany: DAX | 3.91 | Singapore Straits | 0.20 |
| France: CAC 40 | 3.29 | MSCI China | 1.45 |
Source: Datastream
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