Banks lead tentative FTSE recovery
European markets made a tentative recovery this morning after world economic leaders promises to pile in liquidity if the dire state of equities did not pick up.
There was carnage on global markets yesterday with commodities and shares driven down by fears over the Eurozone crisis and the spluttering US economy.
Commodities also took a battering as slower growth in China also spooked investors who had recently considered precious metals, particularly gold, to be a safe haven.
The G20 tried to reassure markets by declaring it was ready to take action to stabilize markets, which have been plunging amid the bleak economic outlook.
The main indexes in the UK, France and Germany were all up between 0.5 per cent and one per cent in early trading, after falling by about five per cent in the previous session.
On the FTSE 100 there were few fast risers but steady progress was made with Vodafone the biggest climber, up 1.6 per cent.
HSBC and Lloyds both made it on to the table of top five shares in early trading, both lifting by more than one per cent. RBS was up by 0.3 per cent.
Meanwhile Unilever and BP also nudged up by a similar level.
On the negative side, biggest sector overall to struggle as confidence in world economic growth ebbed away was mining Xstrata, Glencore and Vedanta all dropped by 2.4 per cent.
Other stock to suffer was iPhone chipmaker Arm Holdings and engineer Weir, both down three per cent.
Despite the rally on European markets Asia continued to struggle overnight. The Nikkei closed down two per cent while the Hang Seng lost 1.3 per cent.