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STOCK EXCHANGE

Stockholm rides financial rollercoaster

The Stockholm stock exchange finished on an upswing after a day filled with stomach-churning peaks and troughs.

The OMXS index shed four percent in early trading on the back of continued turmoil on the Asian markets.

By lunchtime however share prices had undergone a recovery amid rumours that the cavalry was about to arrive in the form of the US Federal Reserve.

“A serious interest rate reduction is needed to reduce the pressure,” said SEB bank analyst Martin Guri when TT spoke to him on Tuesday morning.

And his prayers were answered when, at 2.30pm Swedish time, the Fed dropped interest rates by a whopping 0.75 percentage points to 3.5 percent.

Shares in Stockholm shot up 3.5 percent as a direct result.

But the joy was short-lived as some analysts began to talk of a panic situation, wondering why such drastic action was necessary a week before the Fed’s next scheduled meeting.

Just half an hour after the 3.5 percent leap, shares in Stockholm fell back down to their pre-announcement levels.

But the OMXS index managed one last climb before close of trading, finishing 2.4 percent higher than at the start of the day.

“Shareholders have been very active: 20,000 deals involving private individuals in the first half hour. That’s the highest amount of activity for many years. Swedes are running to catch up and it’s hard to know what’s going to happen,” said Claes Hemberg, spokesman for on-line broker Avanza.

FINANCE

Stockholm stock exchange suffers worst day of 2018

The Stockholm stock exchange plunged by 2.8 percent on Thursday, making it the worst trading day of 2018.

Stockholm stock exchange suffers worst day of 2018
File photo: Stina Stjernkvist/TT
Stock markets across Europe suffered for the third day in a row as the arrest of a top Huawei executive in Canada has raised the spectre of an all-out trade war between the US and China.
 
For the Stockholm Stock Exchange, it meant a blood-red trading day that ended as the worst of the year thus far. The OMXS Stockholm 30 index fell by a combined 2.8 percent.
 
The majority of the companies on the index lost value, with the exception of Ericsson, which seemed to benefit from the news about its Chinese competitor Huawei with a 1.8 percent increase. Airline SAS also saw its stock increase, rising 4.2 percent thanks to sharp declines in oil prices. 
 
Among Thursday’s biggest losers was the mining company Boliden, which suffered a 6.1 percent drop. The stock of the Stockholm-based tech company Hexagon fell 5.6 percent.
 
Meanwhile, the stock of Swedish auto safety equipment manufactor Autoliv fell 6.1 percent on the news that it expects to pay some 1.8 billion kronor in fines as a result of an European Commission investigation into anti-competitive behavior in the EU. 
 
Stockholm was far the only European bourse to have a gloomy Thursday. The CAC index in Paris fell 3.3 percent, the DAX index in Frankfurt dropped 3.5 percent and the London Stock Exchange's FTSE index decreased by 3.2 percent.
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