Drinks maker DGE gains most on 100

European equities markets were lower Thursday after new data from the United States Labor Department revealed that unemployment was up again there in June and on a separate report that said Eurozone unemployment rose to 9.5 percent, the highest level in a decade.

In London, the FTSE 100 was 2.45 percent lower to 4,234.27 while the FTSE 250 dropped 1.77 percent to 7,374.01.

There were only four gainers on the 100, led by drinks maker Diageo (LSE: DGE; NYSE: DEO) with a gain of just 0.89 percent after it said it would close two plants in Scotland, while the biggest loser on the 100 was advertising, public relations and lobbying firm WPP Group (LSE: WPP; NAS: WPPGY), which fell 7.01 percent on a downgrade from “neutral” to “sell” from Citigroup (NYSE: C)

Miners did poorly after metals prices fell, with Aquarius Platinum (LSE: AQP) the biggest decliner in the sector as it dropped 7.18 percent on the 250, while over on the 100, three of the top five decliners were in the sector as Lonmin (LSE: LMI) fell 5.01 percent, Rio Tinto (LSE: RIO) was down 5.7 percent and Anglo American (LSE: AAL) was 5.81 percent lower.

The oil and banking sectors also saw declines.

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 was down 2.45 percent to 844.46 while the IBEX fell 2.63 percent to 9,643.5, the CAC-40 was 3.13 percent lower to 3,116.41 and the Dax dropped 3.81 percent to 4,718.49.

There were no winners at all on the CAC-40 and the Dax saw only one listed company gain as Fresenius Medical Care (FWB: FREG) added just 0.9 percent.

Carmakers had a tough day of it as Volkswagen led declines on the Dax with a drop of 7.8 percent while at the same time Renault (Euronext: RNO) was down 4.81 percent, Peugeot (Euronext: UG) fell 5.42 percent and Daimler (FWB: DAI; NYSE: DAI) was 5.54 percent lower.

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext: ALU; NYSE: ALU; TYO: 6687) was the biggest decliner on the CAC-40 as it dropped 5.76 percent.

Markets saw mixed results in the Asia-Pacific region.

Tokyo markets were lower ahead of the report on US employment, which even before release had been expected to show continuing job losses in the States.

The Nikkei 225 was down 0.64 percent to 9,876.15 while the Topix index fell 0.46 percent to 924.02 and the Mothers market dropped 0.35 percent to 443.61.

Bridgestone (TYO: 5180) overcame general trends to add 3.7 percent after Merrill Lynch began coverage by issuing a “buy” rating on the tire maker and setting a target share price of ¥3,240.

Steelmakers were also up on broker comment, with JFE Holdings (TYO: 5411) up 1.3 percent while Kobe Steel (TYO: 5406) added 3.9 percent.

Other decliners in the region included South Korea’s Kospi, which fell 0.01 percent to 1,411.48 while the Hang Seng was down 1.09 percent to 18,178.05 and the Straits Times Index dropped 1.35 percent to 2,320.82.

Australia’s markets saw gains as the Sydney Ordinaries added 0.07 percent to 3,875.2 and the S&P/ASX200 was up 0.09 percent to 3,877.3.

The Sensex also added 0.09 percent, to 14,658.49 while the Taiex was 1.35 percent higher to 6,667.53 and the Shanghai Composite gained 1.73 percent to 3,060.25.

Wall Street was lower in early afternoon trade as the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 2 percent to 8,334.4 at just after 1 p.m. in New York while at the same time the Nasdaq Composite was down 2.34 percent to 1,802.58 and the S&P 500 was 2.26 percent lower to 902.5.

The declines came as the US Labor Department reported that 467,000 jobs were cut in the US in June, 104,000 more than had been expected.

The unemployment rate jumped to 9.5 percent in June, the highest in over a quarter-century, but managed to remain below analyst projections that the rate would rise to 9.6 percent.

If part-time workers who want full-time work and those who have given up looking for a job altogether were factored in, the unemployment rate in June would have been at 16.5 percent.

14.7 million US workers were out of a job in June.

In addition, the average work week in the US fell to 33 hours, the lowest on records that go back to 1964, and average weekly earnings fell to $611.49 in June from $613.34 in May.

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