European stock markets fall due to profit-taking and the fall of Wall Street

The main European markets fell this Tuesday, conditioned by the collection of the previous day’s profits and the fall of Wall Street, as well as by the depreciation of the euro and debt sales, according to market data.

Thus, the largest drop has corresponded to Madrid, 1.09%; Milan, 0.35%; Paris and Frankfurt, 0.34% each; while the Euro Stoxx50 index, where the euro zone companies with the largest capitalization are listed, fell 0.32% and London, 0.03%.

European stock markets began the session with moderate gains, around 0.4%, encouraged by the new all-time highs that Wall Street had reached on Monday, but they did not last long.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.36% yesterday and exceeded 38,000 points, while the S&P 500 gained 0.22% and marked another record above 4,850 points. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.32%.

In Asia, Tokyo lost 0.08% after the Bank of Japan kept interest rates at -0.1%, while Shanghai rose 0.53%, Shenzhen 0.95%, Hong Kong 2, 63%, encouraged by the possibility that China will introduce new economic stimuli, and Seoul 0.58%.

Without relevant statistics (the worsening of consumer confidence in the euro zone in January was known, which went from -15 to -16.1 points), investors were awaiting some business results, such as those of Procter and Gamble or General Electric.

The fall in American futures and, with the market now open, the 0.5% decline in Wall Street at the time of closing of the European stock markets conditioned the decline in the stock markets of the Old Continent.

Meanwhile, there were sales in the debt market, where the interest rate on the long-term German bond, considered the safest, has risen to 2.349%, six basis points more than yesterday.

The price of the euro, after having risen above $1.09, settled at $1.0837 at the close of trading with a drop of 0.42%.

A barrel of Brent oil was trading at $80.36 with a rise of 0.39% (at the beginning of the afternoon it dropped to $79).

Gold rose 0.11% and was close to $2,024.