Bad news from Europe drove markets lower early despite better employment data within the U.S. The culprit in the eurozone remains the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) with Italy front and center. Unicredit one of Italy's largest lenders and banks saw its shares drop roughly 30% over the past two trading days. This affected all European market sectors which saw prices fall sharply. It also led the euro to decline 1.20% to a little over €127. Oddly, the previous bullish theme for U.S. stocks has been the combination of a weak dollar and strong stock markets. Also a weaker dollar was bullish for gold which was higher once again today. Are these relationships now shifting?
It seems too cynical to say but once the European markets were closed, U.S. stocks began to rally off their intraday lows to close mixed to higher on the day.
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