CTT drops 17 percent after recent big gains

European equities markets saw their first declines in several sessions as investors worried that the global recession will get worse before it gets better.

The recession worries were stoked by reports of record job losses in the US in December and raised expectations that the Bank of England will cut interest rates when its Monetary Policy Committee meets Thursday.

In London, the FTSE 100 dropped 2.83 percent to 4,507.51 while the FTSE 250 fell 1.7 percent to 6,762.3.

The 250’s losses were led by consumer lender Cattles (LSE: CTT), which dropped 16.95 percent after it said it will cut jobs and limit the amount of money it will lend this year.

Banks were mixed in London as HBOS (LSE: HBOS) added 5.52 percent but Standard Chartered (LSE: STAN) was down 7.91 percent, while most miners were lower after commodities prices declined.

Miner Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO) led the declines in the sector as it dropped 8.3 percent.

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 was down 1.53 percent to 875.94 while the CAC-40 fell 1.48 percent to 3,346.09, the IBEX dropped 1.58 percent to 9,570 and the Dax was 1.77 percent lower to 4,937.47.

Carmakers led both the Dax and the CAC-40 as Volkswagen (FWB: VOW) added 3.51 percent and Peugeot (Euronext: UG) gained 3.68 percent.

The biggest loser on the CAC-40 was luxury retailer PPR (Euronext: PP), which dropped 7.1 percent, while ThyssenKrupp (FWB: TKA; LSE: THK) led declines on the Dax, falling 7.37 percent.

Markets in the Asia-Pacific region were mixed, with some hurt by the news that Indian IT firm Satyam Computer Services (Sensex: 500376; NYSE: SAY), which specializes in business software and employs 53,000 people, has admitted to engaging in fraudulent accounting for several years during which it overstated profits.

Shares in Satyam plummeted and the Sensex ended the session with a decline of 7.25 percent.

Other decliners on the session included the Shanghai Composite, which fell 0.68 percent to 1,924.01 while the Straits Times Index was down 1.73 percent to 1,880 and the Hang Seng dropped 3.37 percent to 14,987.46.

Tokyo indexes were higher on the session, with the Nikkei 225 up 1.74 percent to 9,239.24 for its highest close in two months as it finished the session higher for the seventh session in a row, the first time that has happened since a series of gains in late March and early April 2006.

The Topix index was also higher, adding 1.38 percent to 888.25, but the Mothers market of small and mid-caps dropped 1.05 percent to 340.27.

Tokyo’s markets were helped by a report that the Japanese government might try to lure foreign investments into Japan by eliminating the capital gains tax for some foreign investments in Japanese companies, although there was some concern that the impact of this move on the markets could be slight.

Carmakers and other exporters were helped by the possibility that new economic stimulus efforts in the US could make consumers in the United States more likely to buy Japanese products.

Toyota (TYO: 7203; NYSE: TM; LSE: TYT) added 4.9 percent while Nissan Motor (TYO: 7201; NAS: NSANY) was up 9.7 percent and Honda (TYO: 7267; NYSE: HMC) gained 11 percent.

In Australia the S&P/ASX200 was up 0.99 percent to 3,779.7 and the Sydney Ordinaries added 1.06 percent to 3,728.2, while Taiwan’s Taiex was 1.32 percent higher to 4,789.84 and the Kospi gained 2.84 percent to 1,228.17 in South Korea.

Wall Street was hurt by the new jobs numbers.

In early afternoon trade the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 2 percent lower to 8,834.86 while the Nasdaq Composite was down 2.32 percent to 1,613.98 and the S&P 500 had dropped 2.15 percent to 914.57.

The oil sector was lower on falling crude oil prices after the weekly US inventories report from the Energy Information Administration showed that stockpiles grew much more than expected last week.

ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) was down 2.11 percent while Chevron (NYSE: CVX) dropped 3.7 percent.

Story link: CTT drops 17 percent after recent big gains