European stocks fell on Thursday, feeling the pressure of a wild day on Wall Street in which large funds took positions off the table so they would not be burned by a group of retail investors punishing short sellers.
Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP fell 1.2% on Wednesday,
traded 1% lower. Manufacturer of microchip equipment ASML Holding ASML,
a part of the Nasdaq-100, which fell in the Amsterdam trade, and the drug company Roche ROG,
fell in Zurich action.
US futures contract YM00,
NQ00,
pointed to the declines again on Thursday, but not as steeply as the 633-point nose for Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
on Wednesday. U.S. markets also produced cautious comments from social media giant Facebook and produced worse-than-expected results from Tesla.
The background for the losses in markets is the remarkable gains for a group of stocks against which many hedge funds have been betting.
‘There was no clear catalyst behind the tumble in equities, but market convenience suggests it could have been due to hedge funds with short positions in GameStop and other memo shares closing long positions in other equities to cover their losses , following the madness in the former group. The slowdown in the introduction of COVID vaccinations in Europe and the US may have also weighed on market sentiment. In addition, Wall Street accelerated its tumble after the FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] decision, ”says Charalambos Pissouros, senior market analyst at JFD Group.
There was already active negotiation with GameStop GME,
AMC Entertainment AMC,
and BlackBerry BB,
Thursday again.
Nokia NOKIA,
NOK,
the one European company campaigning on the Reddit WallStreetBets forum, partly due to its double listing in the US, rose 2% lower in Helsinki after rising 14% in the previous session. The telecommunications equipment manufacturer on Wednesday issued a statement saying it had no material explanation for the sudden rise in its inventory.
Alcoholic beverage conglomerate Diageo DGE,
DEO,
increased by 4%, aided by a 1% increase in organic sales during the first fiscal half. Diageo also lifted its interim dividend by 2%, saying it expects successive improvement in the second half.
Shares of insurer Prudential PRU,
PUK,
2378,
fell 7% as he said it weighed a stock offer of between $ 2.5 and $ 3 billion to take advantage of Asian growth opportunities, while also saying he would raise his Jackson National arm in the US isolated to a New York Stock Exchange listed company. Prudential had earlier weighed in an initial public offering from Jackson National.