Shares drop again with weak US data

Published:  4 Jun at 6 PM

Stock markets have dropped after lower-than-expected employment data from the United States released on Friday sparked concerns over the global financial recovery.

As Wall Street opened a little lower, Germany's Dax index fell by 1%. France's Cac 40 also started down prior to recovering during afternoon trading. Japan's Nikkei 225 finished down by 1.7%, while South Korea's Kospi shed 2.8% and Australia's ASX 200 fell by 1.9%.

The American economy added 69,000 jobs last month, the lowest number since May 2011. Experts said the figures indicated the US financial recovery was slowing down.

Peter Esho, who is chief market analyst with City Index, called it an acknowledgment of what the global markets had long been fearing. He explained that there was a great deal of anecdotal evidence that the American economic recovery had been losing steam; now there is a confirmation of this.

The American jobs data hit shares last Friday, as the main Dow Jones index suffered its greatest one-day decline in seven months, closing at its lowest rate since December 21 last year.

Shares in the EU also saw sharp falls, as the Dax lost 3.4% and the Cac fell 2.2%. Meanshile, London's FTSE 100 lost over 1% on Friday.