European shares recoup data-driven losses
April 4th, 2008 | by admin |LONDON, April 4 (Reuters) - European shares recovered someground lost after surprisingly weak U.S. jobs data on Friday,led by bank stocks.
By 1256 GMT the FTSEurofirst 300 index of topEuropean shares was up 0.5 percent at 1,318.55 points, havingfallen by as much as 0.1 percent to session lows after the U.S.government said 80,000 workers were lost from non-farm payrollsin March, worse than expectations for a drop of 60,000.
“Some people think the (payrolls) reaction was overdone butit does look like payrolls figures could inject a bit of realityinto markets again,” said IG Index anaylst David Jones.
“This will put the focus back on the economic reality andget us back to a more gloomy point of view. We’ve seen afantastic rally this week led by banks and retailers.”
The FTSEurofirst is up 4.1 percent this week, driven largelyby a recovery in banking shares after Switzerland’s UBS(UBSN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research) reported its writedowns for the first quarter andattempted to scrub its books clean of deteriorating assetslinked to the U.S. subprime lending crisis. UBS was Friday’s topweighted gainer, rising by more than 4 percent.
U.S. rate futures showed a 38 percent chance of a 50-basispoint cut in rates at the Federal Reserve’s next meeting,against a 24 percent chance before the payrolls data. (Reporting by Amanda Cooper)
