Europe chems fall for second day on recession fear

22 January 2008 09:33  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--European chemical stocks continued to fall on Tuesday over continuing fears that the US economy may fall into recession, prompting a global economic slowdown.

 

The Dow Jones Euro Stoxx Chemicals index fell 3.3% in the morning (08:46 GMT) after a drop of over 5% on Monday.

 

Europe’s top chemicals producers all saw significant losses, with the BASF share dropping 2.7%, Bayer down 3.3% and Akzo Nobel losing 4.5% in value.

 

Among the biggest losses in European chemicals were Clariant, Ciba Specialty chemicals and Arkema, with shares falling 9.6%, 5.9% and 5.4% respectively.

 

Germany’s DAX index was trading down 3.2% but London’s FTSE 100 bucked the trend with a 0.5% gain, following a 5.5% loss at Monday’s close.

 

Earlier, Asian markets had tumbled with Japan's Nikkei index closing down 5.7%, taking its decline this year to 18%.

By: Mark Watts
+44 20 8652 3214

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