World Markets Are More Subdued as Investors Are Cautious About Interest Rates in the U.S.
After their recent wild ride in the world's stock markets, investors set a more cautious tone pending a meeting today at which the Federal Open Market Committee will decide whether to raise U.S. interest rates. Market moves were more subdued while volumes in many of the markets were lower than in recent weeks.</br></br>Tokyo kicked off the trading day with a 1.1% rally while Hong Kong, which has lately been the cause of much world market turbulence, edged up 0.1% as fears of a run on bank deposits subsided. (However, the Tokyo and Hong Kong markets were sharply lower in early trading Wednesday.)</br></br>European markets ended mostly a touch lower in muted trading, with London down 0.3% on domestic inflation concerns and Frankfurt 0.6% lower in floor trading.</br></br>While the key Latin American markets registered declines, with Brazil down 3.3%, Argentina down 1.3% and Mexico down 0.4%, some traders attributed those moves to low trading volumes as well, as fewer investors ventured in before today's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee to consider interest-rate levels. The Dow Jones World Stock Index rose 0.08 points to 162.22.</br></br>In LONDON, the FTSE 100 index ended 0.3% lower at 4793.7 after recouping some of its earlier losses. The release of higher-than-expected retail price data in the morning sent stock prices lower and ignited fears that the Bank of England may need to raise interest rates again.