Yahoo Finance Wall Street struggles as FTSE closes with modest gains amid recession fears
A look at how the major markets are performing on Wednesday
The FTSE 100 and European stocks finished mixed this Wednesday amid uncertainty over the outlook for the world economy as reports on job openings and factory orders in the US heightened recession fears.
The FTSE 100 (^FTSE) rose 0.21% to close at 7,650 points, while the CAC 40 (^FCHI) in Paris lost 0.48% to 7,309 points. In Germany, the DAX (^GDAXI) slipped 0.62% to 15,506.
US and Asia
Wall Street edged mostly lower after another hiring report showed a slowdown in the private-sector.
The Dow Jones (^DJI) was flat at 33,407 points. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) retreated 0.52% to 4,079 points and the tech-heavy NASDAQ (^IXIC) tumbled 1.37% to 11,960.
This comes after data on Tuesday revealed that vacancies at US employers fell to 9.93 million from 10.5 million, a bigger fall than expected. On the other hand, quits were up and layoffs were down, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed. Separately, factory orders fell 0.3%, also lower than anticipated.
Some economists view the slowdown in the number of open job positions as "progress" to reaching the Fed's goal of an equilibrium between supply and demand in the labour market.
"While the Fed will welcome the softening in the data, officials will put much more stock in Friday's employment report and will continue to raise rates at the coming meetings to ensure further progress is made toward softer labour market conditions and lower inflation," Matthew Martin, US economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday.
In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 (^N225) lost 1.68% to 27,813 points, while the Hang Seng (^HSI) in Hong Kong tumbled 0.66% to 20,274. The Shanghai Composite (000001.SS) gained ground, rising 0.49% to 3,312 points.
FTSE 100
Back in London, the FTSE was being aided the banking sector after Barclays (BARC.L) rose 0.94% and Lloyds (LLOY.L) lifted 0.65%.
Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said: "Markets are drifting as investor thoughts start to turn towards the scale of severity, as the likelihood of a recession later in the year in the US increases.
"Further evidence of a slowing economy came in the form of releases showing factory orders which dropped for a second month and, in particular, as job openings fell to the lowest level in almost two years. The resilience of the labour market to date has kept the Federal Reserve on high alert in its battle against inflation, and most recent data has tended to suggest that the interest rate hiking policy is now taking a measured effect on crimping growth."
Hunter added that as traders begin to rein in any new positions ahead of the long Easter weekend, markets were finding little reason to make any progress.
Pound vs dollar
The pound (GBPUSD=X) was down against the dollar, trading around $1.24, after rallying the previous session. Investors are waiting on the latest UK PMI data, which can have a knock down effect on the sterling.
The same against the euro, with sterling (GBPEUR=X) hovering around €1.14.
Oil markets
Meanwhile, Brent crude (BZ=F) stopped its climb was trading at around $85/barrel, after rebounding demand in the US after data revealed that US crude stockpiles decreased by more than anticipated.
Supply side concerns are also pushing prices higher, driven by the recent output cut decision by OPEC and other oil-producing countries.
Watch: OPEC cuts put oil prices on track to make big gains
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