US shares higher after five session losing run

Published:  12 Apr at 3 PM

As reported by the BBC, US shares gained value on Wednesday after a losing streak of five sessions in row. The Dow Jones index also went up 0.7%, helped by positive results from the aluminium maker, Alcoa, which caused a 6% increase in its shares.

EU markets also went higher on Wednesday, making a small recovery from Tuesday's big losses. Frankfurt's Dax finished up 1%, while the London FTSE 100 and the Paris Cac 40 ended around 0.7% up.

Speaking on the recent losing streak for US shares, chief technical strategist Bruce Zaro at Delta Global Asset Management said he saw it as normal that the market took a break after its most positive first quarter since 1998. It is a pretty shallow blip, if anything, he added.

Concerns still remain over Spain, which now faces borrowing costs of around 6%, despite a small fall on Wednesday. There has been further evidence of hard economic times in the country, as industrial output decreased by 5.1% in February compared to one year earlier.

Madrid has passed a slew of austerity measures during recent weeks in order to reach stringent deficit targets agreed upon with the EU. These are measures expected to restrict economic growth.

Investors are very concerned that the shrinking economy and higher borrowing costs may require Spain to have a bailout. Despite its austerity measures, Spain's bond yields have gone up sharply this year.

However, Joerg Asmussen from the European Central Bank (ECB) says that Spain's troubles hve been overplayed by the markets.