Global stocks fall amid concerns about an escalation in the Middle East


'Higher rates for longer' and heightened tensions in the Middle East lead to a weekly loss for global stock indices, says Axel Rudolph, Senior Market Analyst at online trading platform IG.

Stocks end week in the red  

“A hawkish Fed, surging US yields and the fear of an escalation in the Middle East have pushed global stock indices into negative territory for the week. An over 10% surge in the gold price in the past couple of weeks and rise in the price of oil to just below $90 for TWI is not helping inflationary pressures either with Fed Chair Jerome Powell yesterday re-iterating that US inflation remains too high and needs to come down."

German producer prices drop at record pace

“In an otherwise relatively empty economic calendar UK September retail sales slumped by a much worse-than-expected 0.9% month-on-month, showing that the cost-of-living crisis is a a drag on the British economy. In Germany producer prices dropped at a record pace as the country battles its recession. Next week's focus will be on the ECB's rate decision, US Q3 GDP and earnings by mega caps like Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft."  

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