The Eurozone has officially fallen into recession adding to the concerns already felt by fanciers and members of the public alike. Official figures showed that overall the economy shrank by 0.3% in the third quarter. The second quarter of the year had already seen a downturn of around 0.2% and unemployment has also risen across the member states [BBC / CNN] .
In the US there was further bad news as new figures showed retail sales had fallen by 2.8% in October. Job losses are also adding to people’s reticence to spend and two more major companies announced today massive cuts in their workforce. Citigroup is to lay off 10,000 staff and Sun Microsystems said they were making cuts of some 6000 employees. US unemployment now stands at at 6.5%, a 14 year high. There were marginal gains on some indices around the globe. The Hong Kong Hang Seng closed 2.4% up and European stocks also made marginal gains after losses seen earlier in the week. The FTSE closed 1.5% up while the CAC closed 0.7% up and the Dax finished 1.3% up. In contrast the Dow closed around 3% down on Friday while the Nasdaq dropped about 5% [CNN].
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