Red screens greeted European traders this morning as markets showed a decisive risk-off attitude.
Last night’s news that the Troika had approved Greek politicians' austerity efforts, granting them another two years of fiscal assistance, has done little this morning to lift the sense of pessimism that traders feel when discussing Greece. and at 10am (London time) the FTSE is down 55 points at 5719. In Europe, markets had been waiting for the 10am (London time) ZEW confidence figures for both the EU and Germany, and reacted badly to the terrible figures – confirming that today's pessimism is not solely confined to the cynical Brits.
Vodafone’s Italian and Spanish arms have dragged the telecommunication company into a six-month loss. Even with a very healthy $8.5 billion extra dividend from its 45% stake in Verizon, Vodafone posted a first-half loss of £ 1.98 billion. The substantial drop from last year’s £6.68 billion profit saw Vodafone shares down 3.81% – which thanks to the company's hefty weighting on the FTSE 100 contributed 12.55 points (approximately a quarter) of the blue-chip index's losses so far today.