Market Rally On 'Grelief' Runs Out Of Steam

A broad market welcome for the outcome of the Greek election largely petered out within an hour's trading in Europe (Chicago Options: ^REURUSD - news) , as investors pondered the next hurdle in tackling the euro crisis.

Asia was first to react to the will of the Greek people, who decided to give the biggest share of the vote to pro-bailout party, New Democracy.

The euro jumped to a one-month high while the Nikkei (Osaka: ^N225 - news) in Tokyo rose nearly 2% - the election result seen as crucial to European leaders' efforts to hold the euro together.

European stock markets also made a strong start on opening, with the FTSE 100 (Euronext: VFTSE.NX - news) climbing 1.4% and miners seeing the biggest gains.

The German DAX was 1.3% up while the CAC (Frankfurt: 924169 - news) in Paris was 1.1% higher.

However, the recovery was short-lived as the positive sentiment was overtaken by the wider crisis and the FTSE later fell - ending the day up 0.22%.

While the election result was seen as easing concerns of a sudden Greek departure from the single currency, attention quickly turned to Spain.

The Spanish IBEX and Italian MIB had enjoyed a brief relief rally, as their countries arguably had the most to lose from a Greek anti-austerity vote, but they also turned negative.

The IBEX was 2.5% lower by mid-afternoon.

Spain's 10 year debt yield jumped to 7.14%, above the level seen as unsustainable for a country's borrowing costs.

Both Spain and Italy have come under renewed pressure recently as contagion spread from Greece, with Spain needing to take a 100bn euro rescue package for its crippled banking industry earlier this month.

Speaking on Jeff Randall Live, Italian economist and author Loretta Napoleoni said: "The real problem is Spain and then of course Italy.

"These are very large economies and there is not enough money to bail them out, so therefore everybody is watching what is going to happen next."

She (SNP: ^SHEY - news) added: "Bond yields are going up and to a certain extent we have seen this already last year, but thanks to the LTRO we were able to post-pone this problem, but now what are we going to do and what is going to happen.

"None of the politicians can tell us, because nobody knows."

In the United States, the Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI - news) fell 0.6% on opening.

Trading volumes worldwide are understood to have been low as investors chose to continue sitting on the sidelines rather than take on risk.