Online Stock Trades Markets Decline

Investing Online - Stock Market for Beginners

Stock Market News

The FTSE 100 started the day in buoyant mood but later slumped and drooped below 4,000 as the US markets opened up weak after the publication of inflation figures and industrial data that was not too healthy.

By the end of the day the FTSE was down 20 points to 3,969.

March saw a 0.1% decline in CPI inflation, the year on year decline was 0.4%, for the first time since 1955. The drop in industrial production was worse than expected at 1.5%.

At close of play in the UK, the Dow was 16 points higher, at 7,397, the S&P 500 was unchanged.

The worst performers in London were mining stocks.

Rio Tinto announced they would be cutting production, Vedanta Resources was the hardest hit - falling 76p to 930p, Antofagasta retreated 36p to 5543p.

Financials was also weak, Legal & General taking the worst hammering - down 5p to 50p, Schroders joined them in the slide slipping 60p to 810p.

The rotation out of miners and financials saw defensives improve, BAT were up 72p to £15.68 and Imperial Tobacco were up 50p to £14.79.

Reed Elsevier was the star performer of the day - up 30p to 489p, due to Goldman Sachs including it on their "conviction buy list". One to watch maybe ?

After the release of the Beige Book in the US, which indicated evidence that the economy may be falling at a slower pace, the DOW rose 57 points to 7977 with but it has now fallen back and is more or less flat on the day - the S&P500 is down 2 to 839

Have we seen the bottom for the stock market in this bear market, plenty of people seem to think so, and certainly the falls are not as dramatic as they were earlier in the year and it is rare to get more than 2 down days in a row at the moment - so if it falls back to re-test the March lows then maybe that would be a good time to start investing online again - just a guess.