2014 cannot end soon enough for falling markets

The global markets are suffering with a post-Santa rally hangover, as the bad news that begun on Monday and continued today was still being felt this afternoon.

The US indices normally carry with them the expectation of inspiring bullish sentiment in the European markets, especially if the latter have had a poor morning. However, the US markets are just as susceptible to dark economic clouds as their European brethren, as shown by today’s retracement by the Dow Jones et al. However the Dow, for now, is still clinging onto its post-18000 levels and the NASDAQ is currently only 300 points away from its March 2000 record closing high, leaving the US markets are in far better shape than the rest of the world.

After consumer confidence data came in slightly lower than expected, the US Fed is left in a tricky position as it tries to estimate the effects of cheap oil on the consumer, and whether this can allow for a raise in interest rates that won’t cripple the US public.

Tomorrow sees a full day for the USA, with unemployment claims, Chicago PMI and pending home sales, helping America ring in the New Year, with the hope that the markets can end the 2014 on the highs they saw pre-Christmas, not the slump found after the festive period.

A very quiet day for the Eurozone means that the fear inspired by the Greek-election situation continued to infect the DAX and its fellow European indices. Tomorrow is a German bank holiday, meaning that the DAX is most likely going to have a very disappointing end to the year.

The same can be said for the FTSE. The UK index spent the day wallowing in its own losses following the UK’s poor housing price growth figures contributing to the general bearish sentiment suffocating the markets. With a reduced day of trading tomorrow, the FTSE will be reliant on signs from the USA or China, who releases its final HSBC manufacturing PMI on New Year’s Eve, in order to end the year positively.

Finally we end as we so often have with the continued saga of oil. Brent Crude remained languishing around $57.5 per barrel, far below the $61 dollar mark Saudi Arabia claimed the commodity would stabilise at when the country was confronted over OPEC’s refusal to cut production in November. With US crude inventories tomorrow afternoon, oil could have another severe blow in store before the year is out.