A mixed trend was recorded this morning in the Asian stock markets, mostly due to sharp index rises in IT sector stocks. The Tokyo stock exchange dropped by 0.4%, the Honk Kong stock exchange climbed by 0.4%, and the Seoul stock exchange leaped up by 0.9%.
In the American macroeconomic sphere, the United States consumer trust index for January was published yesterday. It provided a positive surprise, showing a sharp leap up to a level of 60.6 percentile points. Analysts had predicted a more modest rise to a level of 54.3 points as compared to last month's 52.5 points.
Furthermore, home prices in America's biggest cities dropped sharply in November – another sign that America's housing market is finding it difficult to recover from the crisis. According to the S&P/Case-Shiller index, the home prices in the 20 largest cities dropped by 1.6% in November as compared to November 2009. According to Standard & Poor's / Case – Shiller index, The drop was in accordance with analysts' prediction.
Trading at the European stock markets was locked yesterday on index declines after the UK's central statistics bureau reported that the British economy had shown surprising negative growth in the fourth quarter, for the first time in over a year. This is due to a drop in the construction center and the heavy weather that affected Britain through December, forming a heavy burden on consumption. Britain's GDP retreated by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. The retreat has occurred despite economists' predictions that the British economy would record a 0.5% rise. As such, the London stock exchange dropped by 0.4%, the Frankfurt stock exchange dropped 0.1%, while the Paris stock exchange declined by 0.3%.