A massive rebound on Wall Street on Thursday topped extremely volatile trading in global equity markets as key European markets fell while on Friday, Asian markets rallied on hopes of concrete action by US policymakers to resolve the financial system’s problems. The US rally was helped by moves by the world’s central banks to support market liquidity and measures by regulators in the US and UK to crack down on short-selling. But the dollar suffered as the co-ordinated central bank action dented its newly found status as a safe-haven currency. Here are the figures:
US markets (Thurs)
DJIA up 410.03 at 11,019.69
Nasdaq up 100.25 at 2,199.10
S&P500 up 50.12 at 1,206.51
Asian markets (Fri)
05:10am BST
Nikkei up 391.81 at 11,881.11
Topix up 45.42 at 1,143.10
Hang Seng up 1,052.32 at 18,684.78
European markets (Thurs)
FTSE100 down 32.37 at 4,879.99
Eurofirst 300 down 6.48 at 1,063.62
Currencies
05.09am BST
€/$ 1.4210 (1.4359)
$/Y 106.86 (104.43)
£/$ 1.8049 (1.8210)
Commodities
Brent Crude (Nov08) up $1.10 at $95.30
Light Crude (Nov08) down $0.10 at $97.44
3M Copper 24HR down $15.00 at $6,770.00
100 Oz Gold (Dec8) down $50.30 at $846.70
10-year government bond yields (%)
US 3.60 (3.41)
UK 4.41 (4.40)
Germany 4.01 (3.98)
Japan 1.51 (1.48)
Sources: FT, Reuters