- Periphery debt and equities seeing some selling pressure
- LCH Clearnet lowers margin requirements on Spanish and French debt
- Spanish 10 year bond yields rise on political risks

FTSE-100: -0.65%
Dax-30: -0.46%
Cac-40: -0.78%
FTSE Mibtel 30: -1.89%
Ibex 35: -1.45%
Stoxx 600: -0.31%

European equities are now all moving clearly lower, with periphery markets clearly under the most pressure.

The reason for the latter has to do with the somewhat increased election uncertainty in Italy, where the most recent polls show Mario Monti losing support against his political rivals, particularly former Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

In Spain, the centre-right People's Party has come under increasing pressure after the left-leaning El Pais newspaper accused at least a dozen government officials of receiving illicit payments, sometimes from the construction industry. The country´s Prime Minister has denied those allegations, saying that the evidence provided by the newspaper - purportedly from the party´s own Treasurer, Jose Luis Barcenas, who himself was already being investigated - had been tampered with.

The above comes against the backdrop of an increasing sense of weariness over the slow pace of the economic recovery in Spain.

Somewhat ironically, according to EPFR global equity funds attracted another $18.7bn during the final week of January, with flows into Italy reaching their best level since the financial crisis.

Similarly, just this morning LCH Clearnet has cut its margin requirements for trading in Spanish and French public debt.

Large increase in profits at Swatch

Spanish companies Abertis, Ferrovial and Itinere have offered to invest €3.34bn in state highways in exchange for longer concessions, newspaper Cinco Dias reported.

Swatch has reported a 26% increase in 2012 net income to 1.6bn francs ($1.8bn).

From a sector stand-point the worst performance is now to be seen in the following industrial groups: Banks (-0.81%), Automobiles (-0.97%) and Construction (-1%).

Investor confidence recovers less than expected
Eurozone producer prices fell by 0.2% month-on-month in December, as expected.

The Sentix index of Eurozone investor confidence improved to -3.9 points for February (Consensus: -1.7) after a reading of -7.0 for the previous month.

Slight losses in other asset classes
The euro/dollar is now sitting at 1.3563, off by 0.57%.

Front month Brent crude futures are now down by 0.725 dollars to the 115.92 dollar level on the ICE.



AB

Related share prices