Market Update: Eurozone unemployment falls – 29.11.2013

Source: Henderson Global Investors

In Asia, stock markets were subdued as Wall Street was closed for Thanksgiving. Japanese stocks paused for breath after yesterday’s rally with the Nikkei closing down 0.4%. Although Japan's October core consumer price index rose to a five-year high (+0.9% year-on-year), it is still way below the Bank of Japan’s 2% inflation target. Ahead of the much awaited November official manufacturing data to be released on Sunday China’s Shanghai Composite Index finished up 0.5%. Meanwhile, Australia's S&P ASX 200 index lost 0.3%.

This morning, European markets are higher following the release of positive jobs data for the eurozone in October. Unemployment numbers across the region fell by the largest amount since April 2011 and the unemployment rate fell to 12.1% from 12.2% the previous month. Eurozone annual inflation also picked up in November rising to 0.9% year-on-year, up from 0.7% in October. At the time of writing the FTSE Eurofirst 300 is up 0.4% and the FTSE 100 is 0.3% higher.